


the dream demon

by valdera



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M, Magic, hqbb2017, inspired by rumplestiltskin, mentions of kagehina but tbh its not explicitly romantic, slow slow burn, the ocs are there for valid reasons i promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-12 01:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 62,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12948003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valdera/pseuds/valdera
Summary: Kenma Kozume does not indulge in delusions of grandeur. He lives a simple life.Or he would, if a strangely charismatic demon would stop appearing in his dreams, surrounded by gray mist and wearing a sharp smile. And so a world of magic and fantasy haunts him, as his dreams twist into nightmares, as the demon in his dreams flits in and out of his life like an unpredictable wind, always bringing confusion and warmth as he goes.Kenma does not know how to escape him; and the dream demon doesn't seem to be able to, either. And so their bond, ever a mystery, persists, and Kenma finds that suddenly life has transformed into a whole new creature.So Kenma has a puzzle to solve. He does not know what he wants, and he does not know what to do about the dream demon.Things are simultaneously the same and different; what you’re looking for is what you’ve been looking at all along.





	1. spirit of my silence I can hear you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are three mistakes. The first is the wish. The second is the ground. And the third is the fact that he had dared to fall asleep at all.  
> But perhaps the real mistake is _chance._ Perhaps all of destiny is just a mistake that lets no plan go perfectly.  
>  When Kenma opens his eyes, a pair of eyes blinks at him. They are a harsh, inhuman type of yellow.  
> He does not scream.  
> In fact, he does not do anything. _So much for bravery,_ he thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, this'll be fun  
> this is my piece for the hqbb!!

The first thing any child is warned about is the demons.

The world around them is filled with magic, and it will be filled with the same energy for as long as the world exists. People feel it in their skin and bones, and those who are the ones that study it, harness that magic to do their bidding. They draw circles and symbols and balance everything like a perfect equation. Magic makes those scholars stronger. It brings them together; brought them from one side of an ocean to another, an ocean crossed by a burning will and magic so strong it kept a ship intact through storms and fatigue and sickness.

But demons are different. Demons exist under the earth and they are born from spirit and souls and prayer, and they bring nothing but trouble.

That is the first thing his mother tells him, as she stays at his bedside like a vigil—back straight, hand on the edge of the bed, without showing the faintest signs of exhaustion.

“Devotion is not dictated by purity,” his mother tells him, second, late into the night, as the crickets chirp outside. Kenma is only six; he struggles to keep his eyes open. “Desire is just as hopeful as it is dark and twisted.”

“That’s…” Kenma says.

“For every demon there is something else born out of spirit, soul, and prayer, and from there springs purity,” she reassures him. “And from there springs the bane of all demons.”

“And those are?”

“The gods fight demons,” his mother answers, and then adds, “but so do humans. With goodness and kindness and magic. You have some of that, I'm sure. It makes us powerful."

Kenma blinks, confused. He does not think he has much of anything. “Why do the have demons power, then?” Kenma asks.

“Because devotion, even born through spite, is a powerful thing, like love,” his mother replies. “The universe responds to it. And they are too arrogant to really believe anything could kill them.”

“Do _you_ think a demon could kill them?” Kenma asks.

“Only time will tell.”

She pauses and looks out into the air. “At the very least, they will not take you away,” she tells him. “You are too strong for that.”

“Tell me more,” Kenma says. “About demons. Why are they all like that? Full of—of spite,” he says, testing out the unfamiliar word.”

“They are demons,” his mother explains, “only because they have grown malevolent. Benefice is the counter against such a thing.”

Kenma does not understand most of it, but—

“Are there any stories about demons?”

She sweeps a hand through his hair. “Your father knew stories about demons,” she murmurs. “Knew them all too well.”

His mother sighs, pinching her nose, and then lights up. “Oh, I remember one!”

Kenma sits up straight in bed.

“A demon once wished to never die, never by the touch of a human, never by the touch of a god. His desire for life was so great it became reality."

"What happened?"

"Reality befell him. He died cold and alone with the touch of magic encircling him from all sides."

"That's kind of sad," Kenma says. 

"Maybe so," his mother responds. “But intelligence makes the man. Our magic works so well because we do not try to defy the universe.”

She lays him to sleep.

“Is that what all demons are like?” he asks, as she is about to leave.

She shrugs. “Not all of them are that strong. Most are weak ones. All you need to do for them is take a deep breath and push them away.”

“What about the really bad ones?”

“The gods take care of the world-ending ones, and demon hunters get rid of the rest.”

“What does a demon look like?”

“Enough for tonight,” his mother murmurs, and she blows the candle out. "All you have to remember is that demons are killed with magic. Keep corruption out of your heart and do not let yourself be consumed."

Kenma stares at the ceiling. He watches it twist in his vision as his mother blows out the candle, and he feels her footsteps softly pad away.

It occurs to him that he is alone.

Kenma takes in a deep breath. _Demons are trouble_ , he thinks, hearing an echo of his mother’s firm voice. _Demons are bad, bad, things._

Kenma wishes that he could meet just one. He would face it bravely, he thinks, with kindness and strength. Alone and unafraid and filled with purity. It sounds like a magical thing, purity. More amazing than any magic he has seen.

And if Kenma has purity, then it would not matter that he had no magic of his own.

He can hear the sound of his breathing in the night air. He can hear the breeze of the outside.

And he can feel the ground underneath him, and he thinks of the rich dirt of the garden. There’s something awfully lonely that seems to rise in his chest. It’s a sort of anxiety that makes his want to sob until his is spent of tears. It is an unexplainable ache that makes his want something—but what?

Maybe it’s the magic. Maybe it’s the lack of it. Maybe it’s the realization that fearsome things lurk in every walk of life.

Kenma thinks of the garden in daylight. He thinks of the sun and the aroma that is constant even in the dark. He thinks until he just feels and everything but his heartbeat dies away, until even that blends together into white noise and he falls asleep.

There are three mistakes. The first is the wish. The second is the ground. And the third is the fact that he had dared to fall asleep at all.

But perhaps the real mistake is _chance_. Perhaps all of destiny is just a mistake that lets no plan go perfectly.

When Kenma opens his eyes, a pair of eyes blinks at him. They are a harsh, inhuman type of yellow.

He does not scream.

In fact, he does not do anything. _So much for bravery,_ he thinks.

Slowly, the room begins to light up. His bedside candle flickers to life. And then more flicker to life, on the floor like shimmering mirages Kenma cannot look to closely at. There is a strange sense that the light is avoiding the figure.

Kenma squints, trying to make out his features with the little real light he has.

The… _thing_ looks like a normal boy, except for the yellow eyes and crazy hair.  

“Are you… a demon?” Kenma asks.

The boy looks down. He shrugs. “I think so,” he says. His voice is hoarse.

“Ah.”

The demon stands up. He walks closer. _His eyes are puffy,_ Kenma thinks.

“Who are you?” he asks.

Kenma presses his mouth shut.

The demon frowns. His eyes bore into Kenma’s soul. They are a scary, scary shade of yellow.

“Demons are trouble,” Kenma states. “That’s what my mother says.”

The demon steps back.

“I’m supposed to be good,” Kenma continues. “I won’t try to hurt you.” He frowns. “I guess demon hunters and gods kill you, though.”

The demon steps back again. “I’m not…” he begins, and then stops.

“Do I scare you?” the demon asks.

“I don’t think so,” Kenma says. “But I want to sleep again.”

“You _are_ sleeping,” the boys says, and then furrows his brows. “I think? I think so. I know that I’m asleep.”

“But my eyes are wide open,” Kenma says. He frowns. “Unless this is magic. Magic is weird like that, right?” His voice is slightly bitter. Kenma knows nothing about magic, after all. He has none of it.

Ever since the testing day, he’s felt out of place and uncomfortable. Suddenly faces had disappeared, and he’d been left to wallow in the misery that permeated the now dull school.

They say magic brings color and life into things. He thinks it’s not the magic itself that does that, but rather the feeling of being in a brighter place.

The demon shrugs. “I don’t know anything about magic. But I’ve been…asleep for a few days. I’m pretty sure it’s a dream.”

“So it’s not real?”

“This is a dream, but what happens is real,” the demon tells him with a shake of his head. “It’s where I live now, I think. That’s most of what I know.” He looks at Kenma oddly, but doesn’t say anything.

“The dreamworld?”

The demon nods.

“I’ll wait, then,” Kenma says. And he waits and he waits and he waits and he waits. The demon stares at him, but after a few long silent minutes, he shifts uncomfortably and glances around him. Kenma turns away.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, fiddling with his fingers.

“It’s fine,” Kenma says.

There are tattoos on the palms of the boy’s hand, and they seem to mirror the type of veins you would normally see at your wrist. They shift, and the black ink seems to turn of blue.

He stares at the hands for a while. The shifting motion seems to calm him down, and before he knows it, his vision grows hazy and everything fades into a soft black.

He wakes up.

When he walks out into his kitchen his mother looks at him. She freezes, and then rolls her eyes, shoulders relaxing.

“Oh, darling,” she sighs.

“What?” Kenma asks.

“Your arm,” she says, and Kenma stares at the leaf pattern etched on his right arm, like black ink. When he traces his finger across it, it glows gold. Leaves are green, not gold, Kenma thinks.

“Oh,” he says.

“What happened?” his mother asks. She takes his arm and traces her hands over the pattern. It turns a dark blue. And as it turns that color, there’s a shooting pain throughout his arm.

“That hurts!” Kenma cries.

She releases it immediately. “It hurt that bad?”

Kenma nods. His arm is cold where she had touched it. It feels like the way ice bites into your skin and makes it numb.

His mother hums. “Kenma, open your hand.”

He opens it, and sees the glittery gold on his fingertips. His mother grabs his hand and draws a symbol on the floor. It glows a pretty mirage of colors, and a flower emerges from the floor. It is in full bloom, red like the color of ladybugs that Kenma finds in the garden.    
“What flower is that?” Kenma asks.

“A carnation,” his mother replies, on instinct.

 _Huh_ , Kenma thinks. The carnation looks so lonely there. He reaches out his hand to touch the stem with gold still on his hands. The flower bursts into a shower of sparks and then there is another flower by its side, colored purple-blue. The sparks do not hurt, Kenma notes.

The gold falls off his fingertips like dust. And the leaf pattern fades from his arm.

“A hyacinth,” his mother tells him, brows furrowed.

And then she makes breakfast.

Kenma sits at the table, staring at the place where the leaf pattern used to be.  
“Mother?” he calls, hesitant. “What was all of that?”

She turns towards him and pushes a bowl of rice and curry towards him. “A lot of things,” she responds. “We can talk after eating.”  
So they sit down and eat. Kenma does not think of the leaf pattern on his arm. He does not think of the way it made him feel warm when it turned gold. And he does not think of the way the sparks seemed to make his skin tingle, almost as if he was a firework.

“Kenma,” his mother asks, meeting his eyes, “Did you make a deal with a demon?”

“No?”

“Then what happened? Because that _was_ demonic power that I saw.” Her voice is stony, but Kenma sees the worry in her eyes.

“At least the worst is out of the way,” she sighs. “Tell me whatever’s bothering you!”

So he takes a deep breath and tries to tell her everything he remembers.

When the story is done, his mother has not lost her frown. “You don’t talk to demons, Kenma,” she says. “You don't give kindness to them. You just must be kind.”

“How do you do that by ignoring them?” Kenma asks.

“Be unmoving. Do not respond to anything. Keep the goodness in your heart where no one can touch it.”

Kenma nods. He feels the warmth in his arm. _What's so bad about this?_ he thinks, but his mother looks far too worried for questions.

She takes him towards the garden, as the flowers bloom in numbers. Spring, Kenma thinks. The prettiest time of year.

“These are roses,” she tells him, pointing towards a cluster of red flowers. They are a much deeper red than the carnation from earlier. “Classic. Romantic love. Everyone wants these.”

Kenma nods. She takes him through the meaning of some other flowers—tulips, daisies, and some that Kenma forgets the names of. They don’t go to the other part of the garden, where there are herbs and all types of medicines. Those are for later, when Kenma will learn what each plant is for and how to grow them. For now, all he can do is learn what each flower looks like and what they mean.

He does other things as the day passes. He finishes reading the book he’s gotten from the library. A princess with golden hair is locked away in a tall, tall tower. The art has been painted carefully on each page, and the gold in her hair swirls like the way paint does when it’s been touched by magic.

There is a man who seems to move in jerky movements. He looks strange, but

His mother tucks him into bed again, with a firm reminder about demons and a kiss on his forehead.

Kenma thinks about the vibrant reds and purples of the flower the demon had given him, and he falls asleep with those colors lighting up the room like the soft light of candles.

The demon is there again. This time, he is surrounded by a cluster of those hyacinths and carnations. The petals of the hyacinths seem to glitter like stars in the night sky, and Kenma can feel himself being drawn in.

He cannot describe the feeling, but is so much stronger than what he has felt before, so overwhelming he thinks he may just topple over.

But he does not say a word. He sits in the shifting space and tries not to feel sick.

The demon’s eyes blink at him, eyes bright in the dim light. “Did I make you mad?”

Kenma clamps his lips shut.

The demon inches closer. “Uh, I’m sorry.” His voice is oddly strangled.

Kenma breathes in. He will not move.

They both look at each other, and Kenma can see the ache mirrored in his eyes. He wonders if it is anxiety about the future, or just fear of one thing or event. He wonders if the anxiety swirling in his gut is just worries about the future. The demon opens his mouth once or twice, but he does not make a single sound.

And he does not move, and the demon stares at his hands, so they sit in the dream until everything goes blurry and he wakes up again.

His mother is standing above him when Kenma opens his eyes.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“Yes,” Kenma responds. “I—I didn’t move, like you said. So the—the demon should go away, right?” He hopes she doesn’t see the sweat on the back of his neck.

“Right,” his mother repeats. “The demon.” She nods to herself. “It’ll go away, don’t worry.”

Relief floods through him. He doesn’t like the look of his mother’s face when she’s worried. Kenma smiles at her, and she smiles back.

His mother and him have… a _thing_. Kenma does not have magic like his father, and so his mother teaches him things. She talks about his father as they work, sometimes, when the air is quiet enough and her shoulders relax. His father died of sickness when Kenma was a year old. And Kenma does not like talking with others. They are loud and it’s terrifying when they look at him because he lives away from the village, and he cannot do magic. And maybe being non-magical would be fine, if there wasn’t such a clear dividing line: _these are the people that you are not. These are the people you are._

Kenma doesn’t like any of that. But his mother is gentle and smart and there are no lines around her. They live on the hill and the hill is where home is. Their garden is vast and the ground beneath them is rich and Kenma loves the feeling of it. He can feel the earth humming as the flowers unfurl their petals, and the heat on his skin is warm unlike anything else. It is the same feeling that the pattern on his arm had given him.

That day leaves him in peace, warmth curling around his heart.

But in night, he sees the demon again. The demon’s eyes blink through shadows, silently watching him. He does not come close to Kenma. He just looks at him, eyes narrowed in slits.

Kenma curls into himself. He does not move.

The dark seems to curl over him like a wave; it seems to take everything away but the bright eyes of the demon.

When he wakes up, his body feels cold. He drags himself awake, but he can’t seem to feel energy for anything.

His mother presses a hand to his forehead when he tells her he’s not feeling well.

Her eyes bore into him. “Did the demon visit you in your dreams again?”

Kenma looks at the worry in her frown and eyes. He looks at her, and he says, “No.” _Everything will be over soon,_ he thinks. _I did not move._

His mother treats him with gentle hands for the rest of the day. There is a permanent crease in her brows, and Kenma wonders where exactly he went wrong. There is—or there will be—no demon. There is no reason for her to worry.

Night falls, and Kenma succumbs to sleep.

The demon’s eyes follow him around in his dreams. He cannot get the shape and shade of them out of his head. They are brighter than any human eyes Kenma knows. And they draw him in, like a moth to a flame.

Kenma does not move.

He falls asleep. Again. Again. _Again_.

The demon floats into the air.

 _A week has passed,_ Kenma thinks. He swallows. “Hey,” he says, accepting defeat.

The demon’s eyes blink in surprise. The room starts to lighten up.

“Why are you still here?”

“I need somewhere to be,” the demon replies, slowly, “and you… smell like magic.”

“I’m _not_ ,” Kenma snaps. “There’s no magic here.”

The demon frowns. “I guess I have to find another dream,” he mutters.

“What do you want to do with those dreams?” Kenma asks.

The demon shrugs. His face is uncaring, and chills run down Kenma’s spine. _Demons are trouble,_ he is reminded, _and they are filled with spite._

“Did you know your eyes are yellow?” Kenma asks.

“I did,” the demon replies. “Why?”

 _They draw me in,_ Kenma thinks, _like nothing else has before. And that’s not how things are supposed to be._

The demon tilts his head. “You okay?”

 _Oh,_ Kenma realizes.

He’s in danger.

Kenma wakes up again.

He thinks he feels a little better. But there’s still an ache in his head. His mother is rubbing at her arm when he walks in.

“Something wrong?” Kenma asks.

She sighs. “I found a demon in the fire, and it got into my arm…”

“They can do that?”

She nods. “Demons corrupt you, Kenma. But you can get them out if you do what I tell you to.”

“With… kindness, right?”

“Well, yes.” His mother bites her lip. She reaches into a cabinet and pulls out a white crystal. “This should protect you, too. The apothecary knows how to make protective charms, did you know that?”

Kenma vaguely recalls the face of the apothecary; a brooding man with gray hairs and a permanent scowl. There are legends about him in the village; he apparently once traveled across the seas as a demon hunter. His mother is on good terms with the apothecary. She grows herbs for many of his medicines.

His mother places the crystal in his hands. “It’ll take care of that pesky demon, alright?”

 _She knows,_ Kenma thinks. It’s hard to hide things from his mother.

The crystal glows in his hands. It is cold to the touch, and the color reminds him of snow.

When nighttime comes, he holds it to the candle, and the flame dies. The crystal glows bright, and Kenma can feel the heat in his hands before the crystal goes cold again. The light of the crystal is comforting in all the darkness, but the lack of warmth makes it hard to sleep at all.

He opens his eyes and sees nothing.  

The crystal is in his left hand. So Kenma uses the little light that emanates from it to look around.

“Hey.”  
Kenma jumps. He looks upward. The demon is above him, staring at the crystal with unabashed curiosity.

“What’s that?” the demon asks.

“A charm for demons,” Kenma says. “So they don’t bother me.”

The demon drops to the ground. “You mean me.” His voice is flat.

“...Yes,” Kenma admits.

“You’re _afraid_ of me,” the demon exclaims, eyes wide.

“Why are you still here?” Kenma asks, trying not to betray any panic. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

“Because!” the demon cries. “You have magic!”

“I don’t!” Kenma yells, holding the crystal in front of him. It flashes, and the room bursts with heat. It stings Kenma’s skin like the chill of winter.

The demon steps back. “Why do I scare you?” he asks.

“You’re a demon,” Kenma responds, babbling, “and you look scary, and I can’t sleep because you’re giving me _nightmares--_ ”

The demon disappears.

Kenma’s arms fall to his sides. The dark seems even more oppressive than all other nights. He stares at the harsh light of the crystal. There is nothing he can see here.

Kenma waits it out. Instinctively, he knows that this is the last night.

There’s an uncomfortable ringing noise where the silence should be. Kenma feels the ache in his head grow stronger. The ringing gets louder.

Kenma’s eyes flash open. The crystal is pressed into his hand. When he places it on the bedside table, there’s an indent of it in his hand.

“Kenma?” his mother calls.

“Coming!” he shouts, jumping out of bed.

He heads outside. The sun is already high in the sky, and Kenma already feels tired, but he knows that soon enough, he’ll sleep normally.

His mother’s hands are steady as she ties the flowers to a piece of curved metal. They are a pale, delicate shade of pink. “Slept well?” she asks, not looking up.

“I’ll be better,” he says. “Thank you for the crystal.”

She smiles. “That’s great. Get changed—we’re going into town.”

Kenma switches out of his clothes into something slightly neater, and his mother runs a comb through his hair, working out the tangles.

“Want me to tie it up?” she asks.

Kenma shrugs. “Sure.”

He feels his hair being pulled into a ponytail, and then something is pushed into his hair.

“What’s that?”

“Flower.”

Kenma hums absentmindedly as his mother washes combs her hair.

“What kind of flower is it?” he asks, as they walk down the hill.

“A white lily,” she replies. Kenma doesn’t remember the meaning of that one.

He can feel eyes following him as he walks on the road. Kenma steps closer to his mother, wondering if it’s possible to disappear. Or turn invisible. The eyes on him make him uncomfortable and vulnerable.

They reach the apothecary’s store.

Kenma walks in with hesitant steps.

“Ukai?” his mother asks. An old man pops out from the back of the shop. “Chinami,” he acknowledges. “Need something?” he asks, noticing that her hands are not full of bags.

She holds up the headband to him. “Could you maybe make these flowers last longer?”

Ukai studies the headband with a critical eye. “I could freeze them as they are,” he offers.

“Great,” his mother says, sounding relieved. She hands the headband to Ukai, who produces a stick of chalk from his pocket. He draws a circle on the floor and writes a few symbols, before placing the headband on the circle and tapping it twice with his wand.

The messy circle glows, encasing the headband in an icy cover, before cracking and revealing the same headband underneath.

Kenma shivers. The air feels several degrees colder.

He stares at Ukai’s wand. It is pure white, with crystal embedded in it in swirls. The end which Ukai holds is tipped with a splash of crimson.

Ukai hands the headband to his mother, and then they are off, again.

She knocks on the door to a house Kenma does not know, and then hands the headband to a young girl with black hair. The headband fits snugly on her head, and she smiles.

She notices Kenma at the door, and nods at him.  
Kenma lifts his hand in a wave, and then the girl hands his mother a handful of coins before closing the door.

“Do you always do deliveries face-to-face?” Kenma asks.

His mother shakes her head. “Usually I have a merchant take them out through the country, but if someone from here wants anything, I’ll make it. I have to make trips here anyways. Speaking of which,” she continues, “I’m going to go buy some cloth.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out Kenma’s book. “How do you feel about staying at the library?”  
“Fine with me,” Kenma says.

She drops him off at the library with a pat on the head. Kenma returns the book to a woman he doesn’t know.

He strolls through the shelves aimlessly. Maybe he’ll choose a fairy tale again. The art in those are always beautiful.

Something catches his eyes. The script is written in shifting, glittery gold.

_On Magic._

He flips it open and there are symbols and sign and so much text, and the pages seem to glow. He brings it to the front desk. The girl looks at it disinterestedly. “This isn't even in the records,” she mutters. She leans over the counter and looks at him. “Do you want to keep it?”  
Kenma bites his lip. The words in there are complicated. Kenma will need an incredibly long time to read it.

He nods.

She waves him off with a shrug and a “have fun!”

Kenma opens the first page.

 _Intelligence makes the man_ is written in fancy script. He stares at the words. Why would his mother read a book on magic?

He voices the question when his mother comes back.

“Oh,” she says. “I wanted to know a lot about it, since your father was a demon hunter.”

“He was?” Kenma asks. It occurs to him that he knows nothing about his father.

“Yes,” his mother says. “He used to travel and sell those flower accessories for me while on the job.”

 _Demon hunter,_ Kenma thinks. It doesn’t leave his mind for the rest of the day. He stares at the glittery gold of the title. He wonders what being a demon hunter is like. If it makes people strong.

His mother enters the room. She takes the book from his lap and places it on the table.

Kenma reaches for the white crystal. It is a clear, glassy color.

His mother blows the candle out.

Kenma thinks of gold and drifts into sleep. His head is empty of any strange feelings. And if he has any weird feeling, they’re certainly just a joke. A dream.

When he wakes up, something is… different.

Or maybe he’s not awake. Maybe he’s dreaming and dreaming is always like this. The place around him is dark. Kenma can feel the crystal in his hands, and he blindly tries to hold it up to his face. The tiny glow is enough to make his heartbeat calm down.

 _This is different from before,_ Kenma thinks, looking everywhere around him. The demon is not here.

A pair of eyes pop in front of his face, and Kenma jumps back. They are a dark amber color, and it sends chills up and down his back. The eyes are close enough that Kenma can see red flecks in them, like the carnation the demon had given him.

“Who are you?” he asks.

The room flashes white, and Kenma can hear a ringing sound in his ear. _Who are you,_ the room echoes mockingly _, who—wHo—are YOU?_ Something in his ears cackles, and—

Another pair of eyes. And then another. A fourth, and a fifth.

Kenma chucks his crystal at a pair of eyes.

The crystal glows that red-orange color, like burning flames, and then glows brighter and brighter and brighter, lighting up the whole room.

Kenma finds himself looking at shadowy almost-human figures, swaying in unnatural rhythms. Their eyes are wide and piercing. Their hands reach out to him, long spidery fingers, brushing across his skin.

The flames turn black, and the demons grin.

Kenma screams, backing away, bumping into each shadow, feeling the rough skin rub against his.   

Kenma, they whisper, and the ringing grows louder, like a chant that envelops around him. His name feels ugly on their hissing tongues.

_Kenma Kenma KeNMA—_

The crystal breaks, the room goes dark, Kenma screams louder, and then Kenma wakes up.

“Kenma!” his mother screams, shaking his shoulders. He blinks his eyes open with a full-body shudder.

She slumps down by the side of the bed. “You wouldn’t wake up,” she mumbles. “I was so scared.”  
“I—” he begins, moving his hands to sit up, and then winces in pain. He hisses and pushes the blanket off of him. His left hand is bloody from the pieces of crystal embedded in his skin.

“Hang on,” his mother says, lip wobbly. She lifts him up and sits him on a chair, careful to not touch the crystal shards. She leaves the room and reappears a minute later with a broom and a trash can. Carefully, she sweeps all the shattered pieces into the the trash can. When she’s done, she walks towards him. She inspects the pieces in his hand.

“This is going to hurt,” she warns.

Kenma closes his eyes. He grits his teeth, and then—

She pulls a piece out. It hurts, but he can manage it.

They repeat this for all the big pieces, and then she takes his right hand. “We’re going to the apothecary,” she declares, and leads him down the hill.

The walk down feels longer than usual. Kenma can feel the blood running down his hand and he sees it stain the grass or road when it drips off of his hand.

“What happened?” she asks.

“A demon,” Kenma responds.

She frowns. “It’s still bothering you?”

“No!” Kenma says. “It left. These were… _different_.” He shudders. “There were hundreds of them, and they were everywhere—”  
“Oh, dear,” his mother says, trying to look calm. “Hopefully Ukai will know something.”

Ukai pulls out all the small crystal pieces from Kenma’s hand at once, and he bites his tongue so hard he thinks that he would feel blood if it went on any longer. Ukai rubs something on it that makes it sting, and then he wraps Kenma’s hand with bandages, not saying a single word.

Kenma thinks that he recognizes the crystal.

“So what do you think?” his mother asks, when she relates the story to him.

Ukai frowns. “Demons chase people with magic. You don’t have any, kid. Anything seem off to you?”

Kenma wonders if it is good that Ukai is speaking directly to him. If it is alright that he calls him ‘kid’.  
Kenma thinks about what the demon with yellow eyes told him. “What do they do with that magic?” he asks.

“They take it,” Ukai says. “Only if you’re weak enough for that to happen, though.”  
Kenma sighs. He just wants the nightmares to stop.

“Do demons always appear in dreams?” Kenma asks.

“About that,” Ukai begins. “They should be able to visit you everywhere. Have you felt anything recently?”

Kenma shakes his head.

Ukai looks up at the ceiling, brows furrowed in concentration. “That’s strange. Demons sometimes specialize in places, but they can go anywhere.”  
“There’s no demon that has to stay in the same place?” Kenma asks. The first demon had said that he couldn’t go anywhere else.

“Never,” Ukai says. “They’re everywhere, like the gods are everywhere.”

Kenma nods.

 _Maybe that demon is special,_ he thinks. His yellow eyes had something that Kenma does not think exists anywhere else. Dream demon, Kenma titles him. The only dream demon that exists. Those dreams were more peaceful than the one last night. They felt like candlelight.

“The nightmares should stop if they realize he doesn’t have magic,” Ukai advises. “If they don’t, those demons might be after something much worse.”

Kenma wonders what the dream demon was after.

He stares at the candlelight for a long time before he blows it out. Kenma closes his eyes. He thinks he can still feel that phantom warmth in his right arm. The script of his book glows in the night.

 _I need to sleep,_ Kenma thinks. He turns away and closes his eyes.

The dream starts off easy. In fact, it starts off almost soft. Kenma blinks his eyes open and sees himself staring at a mirror. His eyes are a lighter shade of brown than he remembers them being.

His hair is getting long, Kenma realizes. Coupled with his dull expression and his light eyes, he looks almost frightening.

His eyes start to glow, and then they melt over into a distinctly orange shade.

Kenma freezes. He watches as his eyes turn from brown to orange and as he stares into the mirror he _swears_ he can see red flecks appear—

And then there are demons behind him they’re _everywhere—_

The demons did not leave him alone.

Ukai examines him again the next day. “Nothing bad is happening,” he says, “except for the lack of sleep. Chinami, do you think Kenma should be tested for magic again?”

“You can’t see his magic, can you?”

Ukai shakes his head.

“Then nobody else would be able to,” she says.

Kenma barely understands those last few words; he slips back into sleep.

The demons keep coming. They grow in number. And they do not take anything from him, but they are always there, and they will never leave Kenma alone.

He feels the ghosts of them in the daytime, like phantoms across his skin. The cuts on his hands heal, but Kenma does not feel any better.

First, he tries to force himself awake. It never works. He eventually falls asleep and the dreams are a thousand times worse and a thousand times longer.

Then he tries Ukai’s crystal. They feel icy and unfamiliar in his palm.

He throws it at a demon, watches it glow like fire and everything _burns—_

It shatters and cuts open his left hand again.

Kenma stops trying after that.

 _The dream demon was trouble,_ Kenma thinks. He should have never said a word. The ringing sound follows him around constantly. It is louder than the beating of his heart.

Every child is warned about the demons.

And sometimes the warnings aren’t enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from "death with dignity" by sufjan stevens!
> 
> i will make an effort to post every thursday, but after winter break it's likely i'll slow down
> 
> find me @ sonnets-of-beauty on tumblr!!


	2. but I'm afraid to be near you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenma is eight years old, and his body still feels as awkward and tired as when he was six, except maybe even worse. This is the feeling he gets when he hops up on a stool and finds that his feet hang two inches above the ground, which seems to spin under him like the way spiders and lies only do. He had not been well when he was six; he has not grown into eight years of age well, either. Kenma thinks that nine years will fit him just as strangely as the rest.

Kenma thinks that there are moments in your life that change everything. The first, maybe, was his father’s death. And the second was the dream demon.

He thinks, maybe, that the third is this. Being called a demon isn’t the world’s most life-changing event, of course, but it is the key word _demon_ that makes it life-changing. Demons follow him around everywhere; they are the pervasive and constant event that will inevitably ruin Kenma’s life.

The boy looks at him, slightly drawn back. Kenma loves first impressions.  

He tugs at his black hair. It’s a lot longer than most other kids his age. Maybe it is weird. “Do I really?” he asks the boy.

The boy frowns. “Yeah? You’re…not?”

Kenma stares at him and shrugs. This boy has probably grown up with lots of stories about demons. He does not know what real demons are like. So he doesn’t make a big deal out of anything. He picks up the book he had dropped, and goes on his way.

Truthfully, Kenma does care. He holds grudges far too long and far too often. But he also doesn’t care enough to do anything about it.

He enters the apothecary and waves at his mother, who seems to be making some kind of medicine.

“Oh!” she says. “Did you make your way from the library to here?”

Kenma nods. He holds up the book.

She narrows her eyes at the title. “I think I’ve heard of that one,” she says. “Hopefully it’s good!”

Kenma nods, again. He’s gotten a lot better with handling the lack of sleep, but the tiredness in his bones often reminds him that energy is best conserved.

“You shouldn't wander out by yourself, though,” his mother reprimands. “There’s a chance you could get lost.”

“Alright.”

His mother sighs, and ruffles his hair. “We’ll work this out.”

She has been saying that for a very long time.

“Hey, Kenma,” his mother says, “do you want anything specific for your birthday?”

He blinks. His horrible sleeping schedule has not helped him keep track of time.

“It’s my birthday?” he asks.

“Tomorrow,” his mother reminds him. There is worry in her eyes. Kenma does not know how to fix it.

 _This is her normal,_ he thinks. _This is something she lives with every waking moment._

“So,” his mother chirps, “how do you feel about festivals? There’s going to be one today.”

Kenma’s eyes light up. “Festivals are… good,” he tells her. The voices and clusters of people should make him feel frightened, but the lights from festivals seem to make the whole sky lighter. Kenma likes festivals very much.

“Do they still have caramel apples?” he asks.

His mother grins. “I’m sure they do,”

“Chinami,” Ukai calls. “Come to the back for a minute, would you?”

She pats Kenma’s head. “We’ll go home soon, okay? Have fun with your book.” Kenma nods, and with that, his mother dashes to the back.

He envies her energy. He knows that his mother has lost sleep from worry, but Ukai’s charms will let her body rest, even if her mind is always full of worry. Kenya feels much too tired to think of anything but amber eyes and the dark blue ink running through his veins. Kenma’s normal pervades every waking moment and every moment left to his dreams. He does not get a break.

Kenma stares at the mirror in the apothecary. His hair is shoulder-length at this point, and it casts a shadow over his face that makes him look eerie. Coupled with his eye bags and pale skin, Kenma is not the most pleasant of sights.

 _This is fine,_ Kenma thinks. _This is my normal._

Kenma is eight years old, and his body still feels as awkward and tired as when he was six, except maybe even worse. This is the feeling he gets when he hops up on a stool and finds that his feet hang two inches above the ground, which seems to spin under him like the way spiders and lies only do. He had not been well when he was six; he has not grown into eight years of age well, either. Kenma thinks that nine years will fit him just as strangely as the rest.

He tries not to show anything as he stares at the first page of his book. Apathy is a comfortable sort of shield, nowadays. Only the demons can see his fear. Most people leave him alone once they realize he doesn't do anything. Kenma wonders if they will maybe do something to him now, with his strange appearance and mysterious background.

_In a kingdom of far, far away…_

Kenma blinks. He thinks of the king’s face on the coins the girl had pressed into his mother’s hands. The face is harsh and commanding and Kenma always feels strange when he sees them. _This is the king,_ he thinks. _The king which I have never met, but rules me anyway._ He thinks that many things rule his life. There are many things outside of his control. And the things that he can control does not mean much.

Kenma stares at the book. He does not read the words. All he can do is sit there and think about how insignificant his life is. The demons seem like such a big, life-altering problem, but does it affect anyone but himself? And most of all, what does it _mean?_

Kenma bites his lip. Insignificance, he thinks, is a good descriptor for my life. He does not think that it is necessarily a bad thing, to be a small, small, part of a large world. People will not know you if you are insignificant.

His mother comes back into the room. “Kenma?” she calls.

He slides off the stool and his feet hit the ground.

She takes his arm by the wrist and traces her fingers across the pattern of his veins, dark blue and stark against his pale skin.

“Do you want to sleep so you’ll be okay for the festival?”

“I'll be okay,” Kenma says. He's gotten better at not falling asleep, and he's tired for it, but Kenma is always tired. At the very least, he only wants to deal with demons for once a day.

Ukai comes in from the back. He narrows his eyes when he sees Kenma. “You…” he begins. “There's demon magic all over you.”

Kenma shrugs. “I guess they rubbed off on me.”

“And you are the exception, as usual,” Ukai murmurs. “You have demon magic, and you're not a demon.”

Kenma smiles with a bitter expression. “I am very close,” he says. “And people will not see the difference.”

Ukai presses two fingers to his forehead. “I am far too old for your son, Chinami,” he says with a sigh. “He's something entirely else.”

His mother smiles. “That something else will pay off someday,” she replies.

Kenma looks at the dark blue of his veins and then looks at Ukai’s eyes. “What's the something else?” he asks.

Ukai shrugs. “You have good eyes, kid.”

Kenma furrows his brows. “If you say so.”

Perhaps he does have good eyes. He sees colors and demons and things most humans do not see. But he does not know the answers for any of them.

“You're going to grow up great,” his mother declares. Her voice is firm with an edge of threatening, as if she will fight off any demon that dares to touch Kenma from now on.

Kenma breathes in the air of medicines.

He will turn nine tomorrow, and the hardest part is trying not to wish for something different.

Apathy is a good shield against things.

Optimism makes his heart beat fast like gold fireworks, and Kenma knows that fireworks are instant, fast, and they disappear and leave darkness in their wake.

 

* * *

Humans are fluid. They are a mix of purity and spite and Kenma has neither. This is what he tells himself as he stares at the lights of the festival. They are a comforting glow in the dark.

Feeling things is what makes Kenma shut down so badly. They shake him up because they feel unnatural and completely new. He knows that feelings are not inherently bad. But they make him feel vulnerable, and he knows that anyone could look at him and see _everything_.

Privately, he thinks of the yellow of the dream demon’s eyes. They stared right through his soul. And he thinks of the piercing orange that stabs through his heart, like flames that moths fly into and burn.

He does not like being looked through.

The festival tents are brightly colored, and there are shouts from each stall.

“Where to?” his mother asks.

“I want to walk around,” Kenma responds. He tucks a strand of his hair behind his ear. Hopefully people will be too centered on the festival to look at him.

A boy runs past him. His leg hits the ground strangely, Kenma notes. The boy then pauses at the side of a festival stall, half hidden in darkness. His hair is black and the firelight illuminates the top of his head in soft light. His eyes are a dark blue and his expression is troubled. His face is twisted into an ugly scowl that screams _don't come near me,_ but his hands are shaking.

He flicks away his gaze before his mother can notice.

She tugs him along, past the boy and into a crowd full of laughter. Kenma swallows. His mother seems to be caught up with the lights and smells, and she shouts over to one of the food sellers and drags Kenma over. Both women immediately engage in an easy, natural sort of conversation.

Kenma can feel her grip on his hand tighten, and easily, naturally, he slips away.

He finds the boy where he left him, only the boy is sitting down on the ground, one hand tracing over his left ankle. With his other hand, he is holding a feather quill. He is shadowed in full dark, now, shrinking into himself. Surprisingly, he does not shiver in the chill of almost-winter night air. Kenma draws his jacket closer and does not make any sound.

The boy’s stare does not leave his ankle.

His eyes are a strange shade of blue. Kenma thinks of the pictures of stormy seas, like dark waters that drag sailors in as paint swoops in and colors the waves in his books.

“Hi,” Kenma says.

The boy’s head whips up. But his shoulders seem to relax as soon as he sees Kenma’s face. It's that odd reaction that makes Kenma set on helping him.

“Who are you?” the boy asks.

“Kozume Kenma,” he answers. “I live up on the hill. You?” He watches as the boy seems to almost unfurl with every word, with every reassurance that Kenma does not know him.

“I'm Kageyama Tobio,” the boy says, tucking the feather quill into the bag that carries. When he opens it, Kenma sees chalk and charcoal and a paint palette shoved messily within. “I haven't seen you around.”

“I try to keep it that way.”

Kageyama frowns, clipping the bag closed. “Why wouldn't you want to be known?”

“Why do you want to be known?” Kenma counters.

“Oh, that's easy,” Kageyama replies. “Being well known means you're famous, and like, really good at something. Like Ukai! He's so cool, I'm gonna be a demon hunter just like him—” Kageyama cuts himself off and flushes. “I've got the mean about Ukai part down, apparently,” he mutters.

“Ukai is just strict,” Kenma says. “And he's good at what he does.” He can't fix me, Kenma adds to himself, but no one can.

“Right!” Kageyama exclaims. “And he’s so strong, and he’s so good at magic, and he takes down demons really quickly and he even knows the king!” The excitement on his face makes Kenma step back. He’s just maybe a little terrified. He hasn't talked properly to someone in _years._

Kageyama frowns. “Oh, right,” he adds. “Why don't you want to be known?”

“I don't like people,” Kenma says. “And you can be famously disliked.”

Kageyama involuntarily flinches. “They're just jealous.”

“Or you're so bad you're famous for being bad.”

Kageyama scowls, face twisting into something that is vaguely frightening. He supposes it would scare him more if he had not seen demons. “I guess.”

“Anyways,” Kenma says, “are you hurt?”

He receives a pair of bewildered eyes in response. “How did you—”

“It's easy to see,” Kenma says. “Also, were you running away from someone?”

Kageyama swallows. “I'm, uh, the bad kind of famous in this town,” he confesses. “I think. But I don't know why people don't like me.”

“I could guess,” Kenma responds. _You have a very terrifying scowl and you are overly intense does not seem like best way to put it,_ so he settles with, “You don't seem good with people.”

At that, Kageyama nods. “I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, and none of them are fun, anyways. They say that I can't be a demon hunter because I'm basically a demon.”

Kenma does not answer to that. If he does, he'll say too much. “I can get my mother?” he offers. “She’d take you to Ukai.”

Kageyama’s eyes light up. “Really?”

“Really.”

Slowly, he nods, but he's still frowning, “Ukai won't think I’m—weak, or, or stupid for doing this, right?” he asks, haltingly.

“It would be stupider to not get it healed,” Kenma says. “And you can ask him to teach you things.”

Kageyama nods, face scrunched in concentration. “Okay,” he says.

“I'll be back,” Kenma says.

He reaches the stall where his mother had been, and she is still there, with an easy sort of smile on her face. “Mother,” he says, slipping back into her hold and squeezing on her hand.

“Yes?”

“I want to go back there,” Kenma says, pointing in Kageyama’s direction. “I think I saw fireflies there.”

Her face softens. “Of course.” She waves at the woman at the stall. “I'll see you later, Ayako!”

Ayako grins. “I bet you'd be good with a sword, too!” she calls out as Kenma leads his mother back to Kageyama.

“Never!” his mother shouts, and with that, she turns her attention to Kenma. He knows that his request is unusually selfish. It is why his mother follows him so eagerly.

“I think they're around here somewhere,” Kenma says as he steps into the alley. He glances at Kageyama once in recognition, and then tactfully avoids his stare. He can still feel the way Kageyama’s eyes bore into his back, though.

And Kozume Chinami may not have Kenma’s eyes, but she is nowhere near oblivious.

Her eyes zero in on Kageyama as soon as Kenma steps into the alley.

She crouches down and meets his eyes. “Your ankle is sprained,” she announces, and scoops him into her arms. She grunts. “How old are you?”

“Eight.”

“You’re tall,” she marvels, and then turns to Kenma. “Thanks for taking me here.”

He smiles and dips his head.

Kageyama flashes him a curious look, but doesn't say anything, and then the three of them make their way to Ukai’s place. His mother grabs an unlabeled jar and rubs some salve on Kageyama’s ankle. He relaxes after that.

“That should be alright?” his mother says. “Where are your parents?” she asks.

“Home,” Kageyama mutters.

She pats his head, and turns to Kenma. “You okay staying here?”

“Is his ankle alright?”

She nods. “It wasn't anything really bad. I'm lucky I could fix it.”

Kenma sees the look on Kageyama’s eyes. He sees the way they flick around and take in the dark. He can feel the dark bearing down around him, and suddenly for one moment he can't breathe.

“We can go back to the festival, then,” he says.

Kageyama nods with vigor. “Yeah.”

“Your parents will be worried, though…” his mother says.

“They won't,” Kageyama replies.

“Alright,” she says, curious.

“I'm fine,” Kageyama insists before steadying himself on both feet. Kenma wonders what exactly he's talking about.

They walk back to the festival, and there are the same lights as usual. It feels nice to be under them in the dark of night.

“How do you feel about swords?” he hears his mother asks Kageyama, hesitantly.

“They’re cool!” Kageyama answers. “Not as cool as magic, though.”  
“Studying magic?”

“Yeah! I’m really good at it, but I hate sitting in a classroom all day.” He hears a groan. “I want to grow up already and become a demon hunter like Ukai…”

Kenma spots a colorful stall draped in reds and oranges. He swallows, ignores the colors, and walks over with his mother in tow.

“Caramel apples?” she asks with a smile. She turns towards Kageyama. “Want one?”

He shakes his head. “I don't like sweets.”

His mother presses a coin into the seller’s hand, and Kenma is handed a caramel apple.

It glows a pretty, dazzling red through the light brown coating of caramel, and Kenma bites into it. The taste is sweet and fresh all at the same time.

He does not have caramel apples often, but they always taste good. “Thank you,” he tells the seller with a nod.

Kenma chews through each bite slowly, trying to focus everything on the sweetness and taste. It is a memory he wants to keep to himself and call up when he needs to. The crowd grows and surges past him; Kenma eats his caramel apple in small bites.

“Oh, the fireworks are starting,” his mother says. “How do you feel about going…”

“Kageyama.”

“Kageyama. Want to see the fireworks?”

There's a hum of agreement.

“How about you, Kenma?”

He nods without thinking about it, and his feet follow his mother in that same natural movement, watching her footsteps through the edges of his vision, and by the time his caramel apple in done, he's sitting on the grass, and someone with a magically amplified voice is speaking across the field.

“Fireworks will be starting in 30 seconds!”

Kenma stares up at the sky, licking his lips. The aftertaste of the caramel apple lingers on his tongue and he can still smell it. It makes him almost crave for more, but his stomach is on the edge of almost sick from sweetness and he is mostly full, so he does not think about getting another one.

He stares up at the sky and tries to commit the flavors to memory, as if he could lock up this golden feeling in a vault and keep it safe, as if he would _ever_ be safe—

He will be nine years old, and perhaps maybe he will grow into this one _okay_ —

The first firework shakes the sky, and Kenma remembers why he hates optimism.

The golds and greens and reds light up the sky in a shower of sparkles—or sparks, Kenma thinks, like fire—and Kenma thinks of all the feelings that have welled up inside him, rocketing around his skin. The caramel apple seems to burst on his tongue, and Kenma squeezes his eyes shut. Everything feels too tight and wound up for some reason, and the grass feels a lot more like the deep jungle than an open field. His eyes snap open and flick around. He can see the fireworks mirrored in their eyes, and Kenma shivers in the night air. He really shouldn't be freaking out. But all he can think about in being enraptured, entranced, captured, under a gaze he cannot move from, with eyes that can see through him and rip him to shreds.

He shakily gets to his feet. Kageyama and his mother are too captivated by the fireworks to notice, and the sick feeling swirling in Kenma’s stomach feels like it's boiling up and bubbling, like he’ll start to retch if he stays under the darkness and gold any longer.

Without any time wasted, Kenma runs as far away from the fireworks as he can, the taste of caramel apple still on his tongue.

 

* * *

The forest around the village is unfamiliar in the dark, and he cannot find his way back to the path. His feet ache because he has never been active in his life or run so far. He half-regrets that, now. He is so far away from the festival that he cannot hear any voices or even fireworks, or he had run for so long that the fireworks had stopped. Either situation is unfavorable.

Still, Kenma thinks, the fireworks were worse. All he has to do is find his way back.

He has a good sense of where to go, Kenma reassures himself. He just has to walk until he finds a path.

The ache of his feet and the darkness clouding the sky does not make him feel any better.

He curls his toes against his sandals, takes in a deep breath, and tries to listen to the air. Maybe if he listens to the air he will hear voices again.

His mother will fret, Kenma thinks. She will run herself ragged.

He bites his lip, checks the area around him, and sets off on the path with the least amount of trees.

‘Branches litter the ground, and they crack with a sharp sound as Kenma walks through the forest. He shudders each time he steps on one. Each noise makes him feel like amber eyes are watching him, and the whistle of the wind through the trees makes a hollow, foreboding sort of background noise.

He wades into the dark. It surrounds him from all sides, like murky water that floods up to his ankles and then knees and then waist, and then, up, up, up, past his mouth and nose and filling him with dirt and other ugly things. Dirt is fine when its is on the ground, or his hands, or flowers, but—

The dark and the ground do not mix well. Everything all at once seems to sway around him, and he thinks of amber eyes and sharp sounds and fears. Kenma does not know why he’s afraid of them. But there’s something about them and the way they know _everything—_

He doesn’t like that.

A leaf brushes across his face. It is wet, and Kenma jerks away from the slimy feeling. The forest smells like home, but everything else is dark and he cannot hear anything but his breathing.

When will he find his way home?

Kenma blinks. He tries to adjust his eyes to the vision of the forest. He tries to imagine it bathed in daylight. He wants to go home so badly.

He can see the forest glow in yellow, then amber, then red, and then the vision cuts out, leaving him in darkness. Kenma’s eyes are not working that well for him.

Kenma’s chest is heaving. He can feel sweat rolling down his back, and his clothes stick to his skin. He grabs at his top and tugs at it, feeling the cold air touch his skin, and sighs.

Then he shivers, because now he’s cold.

He steps on a another branch and hears the sharp crack and the way his breath hitches afterwards.

This part of the forest is not familiar. Nothing is familiar in the dark.

Kenma sinks to his knees, closes his eyes, and breathes in. Everything surrounds him. He tries to listen for something and finds nothing. He wants to go home but he is going nowhere.

He bites his lip, trying to ignore the tears forming at his eyes.

Then—

_Come._

Kenma shivers.

 _Come, I will keep you safe._ The voice is gentle and forgiving.

Kenma lazily blinks his eyes open. He rises to his feet, vision blurring everything together.

Kenma, half-asleep, obeys. The voice is reminiscent of his mother.

He walks farther along the forest.

Cracks resound from above him and under him. Kenma blinks again. How did he get here, again?

 _You need to be safe,_ the voice urges. _You want to go back home, right?_

Kenma nods. He follows the sound of the voice.

The branches are rough on the bottoms of his feet, and the gnarled roots on the ground make him unbalanced as he climbs over them, digging his feet into the dirt.

He does not remember losing his sandals, but he had been running for a very long time. He does not remember being barefoot, either, but sometimes he is barefoot in the garden, and a forest is much the same.

 _Except you see things in the garden,_ Kenma thinks. _You cannot see things in the forest._

 _Nonsense_ , the voice replies. _You can see everything._

His vision floods with orange, and suddenly the trees and ants and moths and dead branches and leaves all become visible. His vision is not usually orange tinted, but now at least he can see the path home.

He thinks it is the path home. It is a path, after all.

 _Take that road,_ the voice tells him, and Kenma complies. He yawns once, stumbling on the path before regaining his balance.

 _Wait—wait—wait—_ he hears the voice shriek, and then silence encompasses him.

A flash of white bursts in front of him, and Kenma recoils.

 _Stay awake,_ his mother’s voice commands, bordering on fright. _Stay awake._

Kenma forces his eyes open.

He walks along the path.

But _god_ , he’s so tired….

 _You cannot fall asleep!_ the voice yells, and his ears ring.

Another burst of white, like a bang. It reminds Kenma of fireworks.

The air around him grows thicker. It feels pleasant, like a fire. His eyes almost droop shut before he snaps them open again.

He must find his way home, or—  
_Stay awake,_ the voice urges, again. _I will lead you home._

He keeps walking.

Kenma feels dizzy. Is he going the wrong way?

 _You’re almost there,_ the voice reassures. _You’re doing perfect._

His eyes flutter. Everything about his body feels heavy.

Keep walking forward, the voice insists. You're almost there.  
Which—which way is forward? He yawns again.

 _Keep going,_ the voice urges, a bit of panic seeping in.

Kenma frowns. He cannot see the house in his orange vision.

Oh, but—

There it is, in all its glory. He peers at the flowers. Hyacinths, carnations, roses—

There are no white lilies. Kenma blinks again. He stares at the garden. They do not have morning glories in the garden, but there are morning glories in his vision.

Kenma reaches out his hands, touches against something sharp and feels his thumb bleed.

The orange disappears, and Kenma is left in the dark.

_WALK._

Kenma walks.

The forest dissolves out of sight.

There is only darkness here.

Why is he here, again?

Kenma yawns. Tiredness seeps into him.

_You WILL NOT fall asleep._

_I hate sleeping,_ Kenma reminds himself, _because—demons_ , but he isn’t really awake enough to coherently think. His eyes snap open, and then fall, and then they snap open—

Kenma walks forward.

Almost immediately, his surroundings flood with light, the same white burst from before, and cackling floods into his ears.. Kenma squeezes his eyes shut, and—

He feels it bone-deep; he has not slept properly in a while. And—

Oh. He’s tired. He’s…actually, really, reaaalllly tired. He should be going to sleep...right...about… _now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ch tile is from "death with dignity" by sufjan stevens...all chapter titles are, in fact
> 
> oh also these chapter lengths are gonna be uneven since this started out as a oneshot
> 
> next chapter should be up on the 14th!!
> 
> find me @ sonnets-of-beauty or whatever


	3. and I don't know where to begin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What if you don’t know the things you’re scared of?” Kenma asks. “What if you’re scared of the things you don’t know?”
> 
> Kageyama’s brows scrunch together. He purses his lips in concentration. “Well,” he says, when they’ve finally reached the village, “I guess you just have to know them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> updated on time!!

_A human—a demon—someone blinks at him from far away. They bow their head ever so slightly._ Happy birthday, _they say, and yellow eyes peer into his soul._

_Kenma does not say a word. His heart is thundering in his chest._

 

Kenma wakes up with a start.

The festival—

The _forest_ —

He remembers everything drenched in orange. He remembers voices. And then he cannot remember anything.

His mother is staring at him quizzically. “Kenma?” she asks.

He takes in a deep breath. He remembers most of last night.

He still has no idea how he got back home. Even though that is a concerning thought, the fact that he somehow made it back makes him feel warm.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Oh, you fell asleep after the fireworks,” his mother replies, easily, and part of Kenma relaxes while the other part grows more confused.

She frowns. “You disappear so easily in the dark, though, Kenma! Without your bright eyes, I was convinced I lost you for a while! Then I saw you when we went back to the fireworks, though, so everything turned out alright.” She sighs. “I’m horrible at keeping track of you.”

Kenma thinks of slipping away from her like it was natural, easy, and then he thinks of how much he wanted to go back home (even if it was a dream, the sentiment was real) and so he shrugs.

“I won’t fall asleep next time,” he says.

His mother smiles. “Did you like the festival, at least?”

Kenma nods. “It was good.”

She hums. “You seem—well, a bit more rested than usual.”

Kenma yawns. “I don’t think so.”

“Well,” his mother tells him, “Happy birthday, Kenma.”

He smiles. A part of him just feels pleasantly drowsy today. “I…” he begins. He feels the ease spreading through his body, like soaking into hot water. “I think I’ll sleep for a bit,” he decides.

His mother blinks. “Again?”

Kenma bites his lip. “I think I had a good dream today,” he reveals. The words sound crazy when he says them out loud. It all sounds like dream, but it _was_ a dream (and that’s important) and Kenma doesn’t know how to _not_ believe it—

His mother hugs him. “Go sleep, Kenma,” she whispers. “You’ve earned it.” He can feel her smile grow as she buries her face in his shoulder.

“Hey,” he asks, remembering, “What’s the meaning of a white lily?”

“Purity, or innocence.” his mother replies.

Kenma snorts. “That really doesn’t fit.”

“They look pretty, though,” his mother rebuffs.

Kenma nods, and even though she can’t see him, he knows that she knows.

Slowly, he steps back. The loss of warmth leaves his skin cold. His eyes flutter shut.

He feels his mother lift him up, and she carries him to bed.

Kenma feels warmth surround him again. He feels the lightest of pressure on his hand. He does not blink his eyes. He just breathes, in, and out, and the warmth sinks him into sleep.

 

_Yellow eyes._

I know you, _Kenma thinks. He does not say anything._

_The dream demon flies through the air. He stops in front of Kenma’s face._

_Kenma closes his eyes, and then opens them. The space around him is sparse. There is a desk, and a quill, and ink. The floor is soft carpet. The dream demon is not in sight._

_Kenma stands up from the bed floating in air. His feet hit the carpet. It is a faded blue color._

Are you happy? _a voice calls._

Where are you? _Kenma asks. And then he remembers he shouldn’t be talking._

 _The dream demon drops in from the ceiling._ Are you happy? _he asks._

_Kenma turns away from him and shrugs._

_The dream demon looks at him with inquisitive eyes. He leans in closer._

_Kenma stares back._

_He feels that his heartbeat betrays him. Too loud, he thinks._

_The dream demon smiles. He trusts that smile too much._

_His heartbeat is betraying him._

_It feels like something new. Something right._

 

Kenma wakes up, again.

He is filled to the brim with thoughts and things to do. Kenma swings his feet out of bed. He feels like he has been filled up with liquid gold, like bubbling lava and fire. There are so many things he wants to do. There are so many things that he would love to do.

“Well, hello, bright-eyes,” his mother chirps when he enters the kitchen. “Now there’s someone happy.”

She passes him a muffin.

Kenma bites into it, savoring the sweet taste and dark chocolate. The smell is a calming, pleasant thing. When he’s finished, he smiles. “I haven’t felt this awake in a while,” he announces.

His mother grins. “Well, what do you want to do?”

Kenma sits in thought for a while. “Where’s Kageyama?”  
His mother frowns. “I dropped him off with his parents, but…” She glances at him. “You can keep a secret, right?”

“Who would I tell it to?” Kenma answers.

She bites her lip, and nods. “I don’t trust Kageyama’s parents very much. And he certainly doesn’t like them very much. I don’t think he likes being in there.”  
“Kageyama can stay with me for today, then,” Kenma offers. “I’m going to be going places, so he can come along.”

His mother brightens up instantly. “Sure!” She narrows her eyes, then takes in a deep breath and turns towards him with a determined expression. “Kageyama will be fine,” she says. “Do you mind if Ayako watches the two of you today?”

“I think I’m responsible,” Kenma answers dryly. “I’m nine now.”

“And you’ll be in town with every other kid,” she adds, and Kenma frowns. _That is true._ “You’ve got good eyes, so keep a lookout,” she continues. “Make sure he’s alright.” She laughs. "Also nine is still very little."

Kenma plucks at his hair. It’s grown to his shoulder, which is a very nice length. The hair in his front doesn’t directly cover his eyes, but it narrows his vision a bit. It makes it easier to concentrate on things he wants to see.

“Okay,” he says. “What’s Ayako like?”

“She makes a gorgeous apple pie,” his mother states, and smirks when she sees the way his eyes light up. “Get dressed, Kenma,” she commands. “I tended to the garden while you were asleep, so we’ll pick him up as soon as we both get ready.”

He slips into his nicer tunic, which is dyed a dark red, and changes into a nicer set of pants, as well. His mother steps into the room. She holds a small mirror with her. Kenma takes the comb from her other hand, and tugs it through his hair.

His hair is a much darker black than his mother’s. Hers is a lot more like a very dark, dark brown. Kageyama’s hair is much like Kenma’s, in fact. And, well, Kageyama is not well-liked. _Birds of a feather,_ he thinks to himself. _That’s the phrase._

It’s not exactly a bad thing, but it’s not a good thing, either. Kenma doesn’t know how friends are supposed to be formed. He hears the phrase accompanied with a dirty look, most of the time, when some group that people don’t like passes by. Kenma thinks that it is quite strange, when the other boys have obviously grouped together due to their magical talents. Of course, those boys moved out months ago, and now school is like wading through waves of bitter resentment.

Still, he can understand why “birds of a feather” isn’t as nice as it sounds. Kageyama is nice, and Kenma thinks they will get along fine, but he does not want it to be solely because they are the same. He would rather like it if someone just liked _him_. That would feel nice.  

“Kenma?” his mother asks.

He shakes himself out of his thoughts. He places the comb back in her hair and runs to the nightstand. Carefully, he grabs the book, hugging it to his chest, and walks out.

His mother looks at the book with concern. “Are you sure you’re going to be able to read that, Kenma?” she asks.

“I think I can manage,” Kenma tells her. If he gets hung up on something, he’ll figure it out.

Kenma feels the weight of the book. It is much lighter than most books of this size, and carefully preserved. Kenma presses his fingers against the pages, and then he can feel it; a sensation like ice and snowflakes melting on bare arms. He looks around, but there is no one to be seen. Kenma wonders if the weather has already begun to turn to wintertime.

But it is pleasant when he steps outside, and the touch of the book is still cold.

They are three-fourths of the way down the hill, when his mother turns left into a path Kenma does not remember. Well, there are actually no real paths, but Kenma remembers. He knows how the hill looks when they walk into town.

It takes a few minutes, but soon enough, they are at a fairly big house by the outskirts of town.

His mother knocks on the door. A man opens the door. He is tall, and seems to tower over her. She smiles. “I’d just like to have a chat,” she says, stepping over the threshold. She leans on the wall and ushers Kenma up to Kageyama’s room.

The man—Kageyama’s father?—stares at him. Kenma frowns at him and runs upstairs.

The man makes no motion to go after him.

As Kenma pads up the stairs, he can hear them speaking in hushed voices. Kageyama’s parents take no mind as Kenma opens the door to Kageyama’s room.

 “Wanna go?” Kenma asks.

Kageyama swallows. He hoists up a bag, and wavers a little at the weight of it. “Yeah,” he says. His eyes flicker up to the few books on Kageyama’s bookshelf. Other than that, the room is bare.

“Do you need those?” he asks Kageyama.

“I’ve memorized half of them,” Kageyama says.

“Can I take them?” Kenma asks. Kageyama’s eyes glimmer, in a mixture of excitement and almost-tears. He nods furiously. Kenma reaches up to the shelf and grabs the four books Kageyama has left. They’re heavy, but he can carry them.

They walk down the stairs and out the door. His mother blocks Kageyama’s parents’ line of vision with angry and furious eyes. There is a knock on the door. It’s sharp and a second later, there’s an ugly rattling sound and an ear-splitting crack that pierces the air.

Ayako swings the door open with the force and pride of a giantess.

She pushes past Kageyama’s parents and picks up his bag, hoisting it over her shoulder, and calls some cheerful parting words to the shout of Kageyama’s mother.

“Now, let’s talk,” Kenma hears his mother say as Ayako slams the door shut. He notices that the doorknob has been snapped off.

And then the three of them are on the road.

“Need any help with those books?” Ayako asks, and Kenma hands them to her, because shows of pride and strength are worthless.

“I’ll carry one,” Kageyama pipes up, most likely out of a mix of guilt and pride that Kenma does not have.

Ayako hands him one. Kenma reads the cover, printed in gold that shimmers like blood. _Forbidden Arts - Dark Magic._ The images printed on the cover swirl in foggy purples and grays, as if beckoning the reader into darkness.

“Can I read that?” Kenma asks. He wonders if dark magic will tell him anything about the demons.

“You don’t think it’s scary?” Kageyama asks, with a touch of awe.

“Why do you have it if it’s so scary?” Kenma questions.

Kageyama raises his chin. “It’s good to know the things you’re scared of.”  
Kenma walks down the hill. Thinks on that. Thinks on it some more.

He is scared of the demons because he does not know anything about them. He is scared of the dream demon because the dream demon is strange and defies logic.

 “What if you don’t know the things you’re scared of?” Kenma asks. “What if you’re scared of the things you don’t know?”

Kageyama’s brows scrunch together. He purses his lips in concentration. “Well,” he says, when they’ve finally reached the village, “I guess you just have to know them.”

 

_Yellow eyes. Black hair. Kenma does not say hello._

Have I hurt you? _The dream demon asks._

_He tilts his hand back and forth in the universal sign for ‘maybe’._

I’m sorry _, the dream demon says._ It wasn’t on purpose.

 _Kenma tilts his head._ I’m listening, _he tries to convey._

Can I see you again? I won’t come any closer.

_Kenma sighs. He thinks about it, and eventually, he shrugs._

_The yellow eyes light up._

_Kenma wonders if he should be fearing them. Kenma wonders if he should like the color as much as he does._

 

* * *

Kenma breathes in the cool air. He has not been to town since the festival. But Kageyama wants to show him something, and his company has slowly grown on Kenma in a way he didn’t quite expect. He tugs the brim of his hat down, and then sun that’s been bothering him completely disappears. His vision is now shadowy enough that he can see without headaches.

Kageyama runs up to him in a whirlwind of gangly limbs, bag bouncing at his side. Even as a kid, he is taller than most of the crowd. Rather, it’s that the crowd seems to avoid him. He skids to a stop just in front of Kenma, and he waves hi.

Kenma, swallowing down the fear of being noticed, smiles and waves hi back.

Kageyama holds himself at awkward angles, like he still doesn’t know how to stand in front of someone you care about. Kenma can understand that. He finds it strange to stand the same way he always does, as well.

“What’s Ayako like?” Kenma asks, as he follows Kageyama, who leads him down the streets of the town. He’d spent most of his time watching as Kageyama organized his cluster of paints in his new room, only to shove most of them into a bag. Ayako had disappeared with a secretive smile, and a few hours later, his mother had come to pick him up. He never did get that apple pie, but his mother had never promised any, so he supposes it’s fair.

It is high noon and the town is positively bustling. Kenma wishes he could shrink away from the crowd, but there’s not much he can do to avoid all these people.

Kageyama beams. And it’s not weird, like when his mother had explained things to Kageyama in careful tones and Kenma had listened from the other room. At that time, he’d smiled a crooked, unsure smile, like he’d forgotten what smiling was supposed to look like. Now, his smile is a relaxed, slight smile that reminds him of Ayako, but the way his eyes twinkle is something entirely his.

Kenma has never had someone look to him with so much hope. Acutely, he remembers that Kageyama is over half a year younger than him.

“She’s so cool,” Kageyama gushes. “She has swords and she knows about demons and—” He talks so fast Kenma can’t keep up.

“That’s…nice,” he says, when they’ve stopped. It’s not a lie. It _is_ nice. But as Kenma stares at the iron doors of the school of magic, he feels a sense of displacement. He’s heard about the place, and now, he can feel it like a shadow curling around him. Something invisible seems to shroud around him, and he shudders. He does not belong here.

“Come on,” Kageyama says. “I know it’s easy to get lost, but I memorized the layout.” He’s wearing a satisfied and confident smile that makes Kenma trust in him.

“Does Ayako know you’re here?” he asks.

“Oh, darling, I’m already here,” a voice calls out, and there is Ayako, plain as day, wearing clothes in faded blues with a glittery emerald green shawl arranged around her neck. He wonders how he didn't see her before. Her black hair is brightened by a vibrant streak of purple, which she fiddles with as she strides over. “Volunteered as an experiment for a friend,” she says by way of explanation. “And now I’m monitoring you too, so you actually get what you need instead of Tobio here giving an in-depth tour.”

Kageyama's eyes light up at the idea, and Ayako sighs. “Maybe another time, kiddo,” she says. “If you find a secret passage, then don’t even hesitate.”

Kageyama nods, and Kenma already knows that one of these days he will be dragged into a quest for a secret passage. Not that he dreads finding it, of course. He has always been very good at puzzles. Ayako studies the door, and then she pulls it open without breaking a sweat.

She motions the two of them through, and then the doors shut between the two of them, leaving Kenma staring into a dim hallway.

Something in him seems to flicker, and grow, and burst into flames like something full if life has just been born inside of him. He walks forward, careful to avoid the statues on the right, and he hears a shriek behind him. “Wait! Wait!” Kageyama shouts. He brandishes a sharp metal stick, scratches something on the ground with it, and mutters something Kenma cannot understand. From his wand, there is a barely glowing fire. He stares at it with utmost concentration, but after ten seconds or so, it flickers out. Kageyama kicks at the ground in disappointment.

 _Ah,_ Kenma thinks with pity. _That's why they don't like him._

Ayako places a hand on his shoulder. She bites her lip, and Kenma remembers what his mother had told him about Ayako after they’d left.

_( “She’s an enigma, just like Ukai. Someone who shouldn’t be in a place so small. The type of people I find most often, I guess.”)_

And then Chisaki Kozume had smiled something eerily similar to the secretive one Ayako wore, and Kenma had wondered just how much he didn’t know about her.  

Ayako pulls a sword out from her back. The blade is engraved with symbols of the neighboring country’s language, and with that same secretive smile, she breathes fire from her mouth. The flames curl around the sword, and everything around them is illuminated. Kenma can feel the heat from here, and he wonders what it would be like to be wreathed in flames.  

Kageyama gasps.

“See that?” Ayako tells him. “That’s how you do magic. You feel it in your skin and bones. There’s no channel. There’re you and the runes, and you talk to them and let them do what they do.”

Kageyama nods.

“Give me your wand,” Ayako says, and Kageyama tosses it to her. She snaps it in half over her knee. “It’s impure,” she declares. “You won’t get your magic through that.”

“It works for other people,” Kageyama counters, softly.

“Are you other people, Kageyama?” Ayako asks.

Kageyama shakes his head.

“Good, Ayako says. “Now show me that book collection.” Kageyama’s lips curl in a half-smile.  

She beckons Kenma over. “Good eyes don’t mean you can see the entire layout of this building,” she tells him. Kenma does not tell her what he has been feeling. The beating of his heart seems to grow louder, and he fears she will hear it. If anyone can hear his heart, they will find everything they do not know. And having someone pick him apart is what scares him most.

Ayako rolls up her sleeves, and a Queen Alexandra butterfly flaps its wings on her skin. Its color is bright blue and piercing in the dark. She taps it with the side of her sword and it flutters off her skin. The image is disconcerting. It looks like it was peeled right off her like a piece of paper and it flutters robotically. She lets it fly in front of her, scattering silver dust as it goes. 

“Security reasons,” she explains.

Kageyama sets off towards an unknown location, Ayako’s sword lighting the way, and Kenma can’t help but have the sense that things are about to change. And he doesn’t believe in premonitions, but he thinks he knows exactly where he needs to go.

He follows Kageyama the rest of the way, basing his feeling off of the route that he’s been led through, and sure enough, the feeling gets stronger.

Kageyama stops at a room glowing with dim blue light. “Wait here,” he says, and then disappears. A few minutes later, he returns with a pile of books.

“I—I saw you with that, with that big book, last time?” Kageyama stutters. “And it’s really complicated, and you don’t go to school here, and I think their books must be easier to understand.

“Well,” Kenma says, surprised. “Thank you?”

Kageyama just beams. “I’m not the greatest at reading, so…” He shrugs.

Kenma doesn’t know how to thank him.

He tells them thank you again, but it doesn’t feel like enough, and he smiles a little, but it doesn’t feel like enough, wither.

“I’m happy,” he tells Kageyama, before they part ways, “that you thought of this.” _That you thought of me._

And maybe that’s enough.

Kenma takes the books home, and as he bids Ayako and Kageyama farewell, he has a feeling things will turn out alright.

 

* * *

He carries the books into his room. The first one he picks up seems to be a book on basics, and maybe it will be easier to understand then the sentences he’s been trying to make sense of for the past week.

Kenma reads the beginning, quietly. Each symbol means something; it holds a special connotation that resonates with an ambient power in the universe, and magicians harness this in addition to the energy resting inside of them. There are equations written out that he glosses over, and he reads up on the basic categories for elements and some other powers. Each category is written in vibrant colors that mess with Kenma’s head. The gold print for the fire element feels off and wrong. Like it doesn’t fit. Then again, the illustrations of magical circles don’t seem to base anything off of colors. Still, Kenma, flicks his eyes over the titles very quickly, opting not to feel the dizziness he’s experiencing.

He’s skimming the second chapter when his mother enters the room.  She extinguishes the candles as he stares at the book.

“Sleep soon, okay?”

Kenma nods. Even in the dark, his eyes can still trace over the words. All he wants to do is finish the section he’s on. There are only three more pages. Kenma opens his eyes wide, making sure the letters he reads are correct.

He yawns.

And he never does finish the end of the section like he planned, because his eyes are already drooping closed, and soon Kenma is curled up on the bed, breathing with a steady rhythm.

 

_The dream demon waves to him. Kenma looks at him with the barest of acknowledgements. He turns to survey his surroundings, and at his back, he finds a floating book, eerily resembling the book he’d fallen asleep._

_Quickly, Kenma opens it, and the page opens up to the page he’d fallen asleep on. He rubs at his eyes, but he already feels awake._ Huh, _Kenma thinks._

_He looks up at the dream demon, who gives him a thumbs up and points at his book._

_At that, Kenma smiles, so little that he almost doesn’t look hopeful. And despite the unfamiliarity of everything, he’s thinking that maybe things are getting better_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so flattered by the...actual response this has gotten?? so yeah!! that's good
> 
> hmu @ sonnets-of-beauty if you have any prompts im in a writing mood


	4. and I don't know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenma writes a swirl on his skin, and the gray mist over him drips on top of him.
> 
> _Magic,_ he thinks. _Not from me. Not from him. From everywhere._
> 
> He writes the symbol for fire on the back of his hand, but with the gentle touch of the tips of his nails, gliding over his skin as if he had barely touched it. The room glows with warmth.
> 
> The dream demon turns around, eyes flicking around the room until they land on Kenma. At the front, he looks much more natural, the blurred lines of his back seeming to cover him like a shroud. Everything but his bright eyes seem to fall away. Even in the haze, they are startlingly sharp.
> 
> Kenma raises the book in lieu of an explanation. Something in him cannot say a single word. He feels that if he says anything, this tentative peace will be broken.
> 
> It is better to wonder than to know. _Truth is often ugly,_ Kenma thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am a liar but at least it's here

He feels things, now.

Things he hasn’t felt in a while. What it’s like to wake up feeling lazy, only to take three steps and suddenly have energy fill you from the bottom up. There’s that muted feeling when he wakes up, and whenever he rolls out of bed it’s always with hesitation—and then the cold floor shocks him into feeling awake and he’s never been happier.

He begins to learn what it is like to be awake enough to feel the world in full color—sights and sounds that almost become overwhelming until he breathes and feels everything as it turns beautiful.

He and Kageyama meet, sometimes, resting in quiet silences as Kageyama grabs parchment and paints, or when they read magic books or fairy tales together and Kageyama tries to replicate the pictures that shift within. He’s never as energy-filled as Kageyama is, but he’s accepted that as the fact that Kageyama is someone filled with boundless excitement.

The simple things are what make him smile. It’s…refreshing, to see someone not think so hard about everything. And maybe he’s not like that, but it’s not bad not being like that. He’s anxious about it all disappearing and he still doesn’t know what to do with this feeling of contentment. 

Maybe nine is the magical number, because it has been two months and he thinks living is not so miserable.

There’s more time, now. Days are longer, long enough to laze about, or run, or tend to the garden, and then there is time to read. It is no longer a pitiful tool to stay awake. Rather, it’s knowledge. There is never enough time, now. And even in his dreams, there is time. Time for things that leave him feeling strange, but not fearful, ugly, and sick.

Kenma does not know how long this will last.

What he does know is that his dreams are filled with murky grays and ocean waves, and then other times they are a blurry version of his room. And in front of him, the dream demon sits, back turned. And he seems to melt out into the air, like he is making himself disappear.

He’s been hugging his books as he goes to bed, and he finds them in his dreams, and so it is during his dreams in which he slowly works through them, and while he’s found that written notes seem to disappear, his memories do not.

So Kenma remembers.

Today is another one of those nights when the space around him stretches beyond sight. The dream’s inky black surroundings turn into a midnight blue, and then a cool gray that swirls around him.

After what he thinks is an hour, he looks up. Kenma swallows. He stares at the outline of the dream demon’s figure, taller than last time. He can see how the blurry parts of him piece together a figure that looks incredibly human. And Kenma wonders if he is afraid of humans too. I don’t know you, he reminds himself, but I think I do. If all of this kindness is a lie, he holds those thoughts close and does not think them often.

He hopes the dream demon can hear his thank you.  

Kenma tries to focus on his book again, and for the most part it works, though he keeps sneaking glances at the dream demon.

He traces the symbols out onto is hand, and he can feel them hum with power. The dream demon shifts. Uneasy, Kenma tries the symbol—air—on his palm, again. The dream demon shifts around, restless, and then the melted black seems to dissipate into smoke before it morphs into shadowy wings. Kenma writes air in his palm again. Sees the wings shake.

He can feel the phantom print of air on his hand, and cautiously, he rubs over the symbol. The smoke seems to spread out, more lax than before, and when Kenma wipes the invisible symbol away, the wings turn back into inky darkness.

Kenma writes a swirl on his skin, and the gray mist over him drips on top of him.

_Magic_ , he thinks. _Not from me. Not from him. From everywhere._

He writes the symbol for fire on the back of his hand, but with the gentle touch of the tips of his nails, gliding over his skin as if he had barely touched it. The room glows with warmth.

The dream demon turns around, eyes flicking around the room until they land on Kenma. At the front, he looks much more natural, the blurred lines of his back seeming to cover him like a shroud. Everything but his bright eyes seem to fall away. Even in the haze, they are startlingly sharp.

Kenma raises the book in lieu of an explanation. Something in him cannot say a single word. He feels that if he says anything, this tentative peace will be broken.

It is better to wonder than to know. _Truth is often ugly,_ Kenma thinks.

He knows this. He knows that wondering if life will get better is nicer than knowing that people still don’t like him, and won’t even if he wasn’t so close to darker magic.

The dream demon’s eyes widen. The yellow in them is perhaps the brightest color in the room. He cuts a hand through the air, and the heat disappears. And then he turns back around.

Kenma shrinks back, unsure if he should say or do anything.

The gray swirls around the demon, like what Kenma imagines a gentle tornado would be, and Kenma sees his body take shape for one second before his vision blurs and everything really does melt into everything. He thinks he almost sees the dream demon turn around, but at that point, he’s already half-awake.

He places the finished book on his stand and quickly gets up. His mother steps into his room a few seconds later. It’s been two weeks, and Kenma has gotten through the first book. His fingers almost itch at the thought of reading the next one. Other than school and a few deliveries made to his mother, he’s spent most of his time reading. It’s a much better alternative to the eyes that see, to watch him whenever he so much as exists.

“Alright,” his mother says, spotting the stack of books at his bedside. “It’s very obvious you’ve got an interest in magic.”

“You’re not enrolling me,” Kenma states, because even if he thinks she wouldn’t do it, he can never be too sure.

His mother nods. “Your studying is just fine.” She pauses. “But Ukai and Ayako can teach you things.”

“I can’t actually use magic,” Kenma points out. He sighs. “This is a useless thing to learn, isn’t it?”

His mother grits her teeth. “Maybe. Maybe it is,” she admits, “but I don’t think you’ll need magic for everything.” She rests her chin on her palm in thought. “Kenma, do you think that you’d want to have magic? Feel all of that energy?”

He shrugs. “It would be interesting. And it would be nice to see spells in action.”

His mother grins. “I’m sure Ayako or Kageyama would be willing. They’re both reckless and imaginative.” She hums. “What do you find fascinating about it?”

“About what?”

“Magic, silly.”

“Oh. Right.” Flustered, Kenma explains, “it’s interesting what you can do with just a few symbols. And everything makes sense. If you do one thing, it leads to this, and if you mix it with something else, it becomes a combination.”

“Like math?”

“Like math,” Kenma agrees. “But more. More energy, more power, more...everything.”

“I was going to say feeling,” his mother says, “but that’s probably not right.”

Kenma shrugs. “It’s a little bit about feeling.”

“Oh?”

“It’s like,” Kenma says, choosing his words carefully, “making a bouquet. You have all the flowers and you can piece them together, and then you have to see past all of that into what it will be, and how to arrange it, but the last part is just feeling. Knowing which vision is the right one.”

His mother laughs in response. “You’re very good at seeing things, Kenma.”

“I think I’ve seen enough dreams,” Kenma grumbles, and he sees how his mother’s eyes flick over with worry.

“Need any help with that?”

“It’s getting better,” he tells her. “I think. For now, at least. But it’s weird.” He doesn’t know how to say the first demon he banished is back. And he’s not sure if he wants to say it. The mystery of it arises this weird feeling in his chest he can’t explain.

Like a secret. Like something exciting. Like something he _wants_ to know, despite everything he keeps telling himself.

This absence of fear is what Kageyama was talking about, he realizes.

“I really do hope I have good eyes,” he says.

“You’re going to be amazing,” his mother promises. Her voice is soft. It’s cunning, the way she promises it so earnestly.

He revels in that hope for a little bit. He thinks he has a visit to make.

 

* * *

 

He’s coming here for confirmation. For learning. For experiencing.  

And the magic. It’s mostly for the magic. He likes the circles; he knows Kageyama loves the magic. Kenma cannot imagine being that passionate about anything, but he understands it’s just a difference that can’t be changed. Ayako and Kageyama are made up of living fire and a hunger that burns inside of them, and Kenma has no such thing.

But, at the very least, he’s curious.

Ayako’s house is big and sprawling, laid at the edge of the town simply because she likes having the wide open space. It’s there where Kenma takes parchment to paper and forms a circle, before settling it on top of the grass.

Kageyama stares at him while he draws it out, keeping his hand steady.

“You can cast a basic fire spell, right?” Kenma asks. Kageyama draws a short, blunt knife Ayako had started him with. It has no runes, because he hasn’t yet mastered the finesse to pick at spells like she does.

He whirls it through the air and the space the circle is alight with fire. After a few seconds, Kageyama sighs and the fire disappears.

“Alright,” Kenma says, and hands the paper to Kageyama. He squints at the black ink. “Fire, and wind…?” He reads out, and Kenma nods. “The circles look right,” he mutters, “but I forget how the circle patterns go.”

“They’re right,” Kenma promises.

Ayako steps into the back field that they currently stand in. “Will you just cast it already?” she asks. “You need the practice.”

Kageyama frowns, but he holds the blade to the paper. There’s a long minute of silence as he stares at the paper, but finally, the circle glows.

A little flame appears, and then it flares up, spreading out in different directions. The fire eats up the parchment with unexpected ferocity. It swirls up into the sky and it coils itself into a pillar much like a rope would do. As it stretches higher, as one thing leads to the other, and Ayako’s yard is now in flames.

Seconds later, they are doused by water.

“Maybe no flame spells near grass, huh?” she asks. “What was that, anyways?”

“A fire tornado,” Kenma explains.

“It certainly worked,” Ayako says. “Can you draw it, again?” She hands him a small pocket knife and points to a dead, fallen tree. Write the circle there.”

Kenma scratches it into the bark, and as soon as he steps back from it, the tree uprights itself. A few moments later, it is engulfed by a column of twisting flames.

“Your theory of magic is certainly right,” Ayako says. “Want to try anything else?”

Kenma looks toward her. “How so?” She  cracks her knuckles. “I can cast spells perfectly. I can certainly cast yours.”

“You’d do that?” Kenma asks.

She hums. “I mean, I’m no fan of experiments myself, but I’m happy to help out.”

Kenma scratches another circle on the ground. Water, encircled by the signs for light, half an earth symbol scratched under the symbols, and then he messes around with the symbols for light, drawing swirls across the circle.

“Try that?” he asks.

Ayako squints. “Plant healing?”

Kenma nods, and she takes her sword and casts it with an artful motion much akin to dancing. It seems feather light and soft to the touch, not even cutting through the paper, and the burned grass seems to heal and grow, a little taller than the grass around it all. It keeps growing, stretching up towards the sunlight, inching up towards Kenma’s knees.

Ayako purses her lips. “That’s going to be trouble,” she says.

“What is?”

“I have problems with my control,” Ayako explains. “I might cast those spells perfectly, but too big. Too powerful.” She shrugs. “I think I’ll let Kageyama help you for now, but I’m going to stuff him with safety charms.” She levels a stare at Kenma. “You too. Stay safe, okay?”

“Alright.”

Ayako sighs. “Kids,” she groans. “You could all just take things slow.”

Kageyama pouts. “Too boring.”

She laughs and ruffles his hair. “You’re going to grow up great,” she says.

Kenma smiles. If life is about discovering things like these, he thinks he’ll be alright.

And, if he keeps it up, maybe someday, sometime, he’ll be feeling safe. 

He sees Kageyama looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and he turns towards him. At this, Ayako politely excuses herself. “I won’t disturb you,” she comforts, and leaves them alone in privacy.

Kageyama shifts, uneasy. “I didn’t—I didn’t even think of that,” he says, haltingly.

“Of what?”

“Changing spells,” Kageyama elaborates. “Making your magic a different way, like Ayako.”

“I didn’t even think of doing magic until you gave me those books,” Kenma says. “So we’re both learning.”

Kageyama offers a half-smile. “I just want to be the best,” he says, sitting down on the grass, staring up at the clouds as they move across the sky. Kenma sits down next to him, feeling the sun on his back, and pointedly does not look at him. He knows he cannot.

“Don’t you want to be the best, Kenma?”

“Not really,” Kenma says, and he watches a shadow pass over Kageyama’s face. “I don’t see how I could be much of anything. We’re still very young.” And then he pauses for a very long time. “But I think being something in the world would be nice. Doing something more than just existing.”

“I feel like I haven’t known anything until now,” Kageyama says. “That there are so many things I’m missing.” He bites his lip. “I’m scared of finding out. I’m scared someone’s going to beat me, and I’ll never be good enough.”

He swallows. He takes out the knife. “Ayako’s thing is better, but it doesn’t work as well for me. She lives it and breathes it, and I can’t possibly compare.”  
“I can’t use magic,” Kenma says. “But here I am, doing it.”

“That’s different,” Kageyama says. “That’s help. You’re doing your own thing, and I’m just okay.”

“Well, maybe you don’t have to. Be the best just yet.”

“Even so…” Kageyama fiddles with the knife. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

“What doesn’t?”

“I don’t like knives. Ayako’s in love with them, but I’m not. I mean, I don’t hate them? But I hate… doing magic, I guess, with them. It always feels off. The magic is good, but the way it casts never fits with me.”

“It feels off,” Kenma clarifies.

Kageyama nods. “That’s it.” He turns towards Kenma with shining eyes, tears threatening to spill over. “Do you ever feel like that? Like everything’s off?”

“I don’t like feeling things that much,” Kenma says. “They’re confusing. But… yes.”

Kageyama rubs at his eyes. “Neither do I.”

“What I mean is I’m not good at understanding feelings. I keep ignoring them. And they don’t help me. But you feel magic, right?”

“Everywhere,” Kageyama answers, sniffling. “It feels like everything.”

“I don’t understand that,” Kenma says, “But if you feel that much, maybe you’ll feel the answer, too.”

“Thank you,” Kageyama says, through choked sobs, because rubbing at your eyes doesn’t prevent crying. 

Kenma’s hand reaches out, carefully, and he rests it on Kageyama’s shoulder. “You don’t like the knife or the wand, right?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Kageyama says. He straightens up, breathing in and out with loud and big breaths, like he’s trying to regain his footing.

“Then maybe you’ll like something else,” Kenma theorizes. “Maybe you’re just waiting for a something else.”

“What if it’s impossible,” Kageyama says, voice filled with dread.

“Since when have you been so—so pessimistic?”

“What’s pessimistic?” Kageyama asks.

“Always being negative.”

“I’m not,” Kageyama protests.

Kenma smirks. “Seems like you are.”

“I’m _not_ ,” Kageyama says, louder and rubs at his eyes again. “I’ll find it, okay? I’ll find it. I’ll go to the stupid magic school and try everything.”

“They only teach wands, though,” Kenma points out.

Kageyama groans.

“But I think I know a place,” Kenma says.

Kageyama looks at him, incredulous. “Where?”

“Follow me?” Kenma asks.

Kageyama nods, eyes wide and hopeful, because magic is something he will never let go.

And Kenma wouldn’t know what it feels like, but this kind of willpower makes him think that people are amazing. He doesn’t want them to lose that magic.

 

* * *

 

He tells Ayako that they are going somewhere and she walks them to town. _Too trusting,_ Kenma thinks. But he trusts her, and he supposes it goes two ways. Maybe she is trusting, but she is a good person because of it.

Kenma is not a good person like her. But he does not mind that. It is just who he is.

They draw eyes as they walk through the streets.

Notably, the boy who’d run from Kenma as soon as he’d seen him.

Kageyama glares at the people staring, and they turn away.

Only Kenma is close enough to see that his eyes are red-rimmed with the distinctive mark of someone who’s been crying.

He can feel a headache coming on. All his thoughts feel short and he feels kind of dizzy, now that he thinks about it.

Kenma looks back at the boy. He recognizes him as the same one who called him a demon a month ago. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth, and so he frowns at the people staring at him.

The few people who were still staring hurriedly turn away.

“Good,” Kenma says.

“I hate all of them,” Kageyama grumbles. “They think I’m stupid.”

“My mother says people are careless with their words,” Kenma replies. “And that we should forgive them.”

“She’s a very sweet person,” Ayako cuts in, and Kenma becomes aware that this conversation is not as private as the last.

“I don’t want to forgive anyone, though,” Kageyama complains. “It’s their fault.”

Kenma nods. “I don’t like them very much.”

They stop at a familiar storefront, and Kageyama’s eyes light up. He sucks in a breath. “This is…”

“The apothecary,” Kenma finishes. “Let’s go inside.”

“Well, I’ll leave you be,” Ayako says. “I’ll be back in, say, an hour?” And then she’s striding off, leaving Kenma with a much more peaceful feeling.

“You okay?” Kageyama asks, as Kenma stands there.

“I like Ayako,” Kenma says, “but it feels weird having her around.”

Kageyama nods emphatically. “Me too. It’s weird being around older people. I never, uh, talked with my parents that much.” He pauses with a shrug, looking around him to see if anyone is within earshot. But Ukai’s place is often abandoned, known to most as a place of mystery that they dare not touch. Too often people ask his mother to visit, or ask for deliveries through a slot in his window for letters.

“I just don’t know her as well as I know you,” Kenma responds. 

“Oh, yeah!” Kageyama agrees. “That too.” He bites his lip and stares at the doors.

“Are you my friend?” Kageyama asks.

Kenma shrugs. “I think. You’re the only person I talk to.”

“You’re the only person I talk to, too,” Kageyama says. “You’re my only friend.”

“So are you,” Kenma says.

“Is it weird?” Kageyama asks. “To only have one friend?”

“Well, you’re my first friend,” Kenma says. “So we’re still figuring things out.”

Kageyama grasps the doorknob in the quiet lull that ensues. He stares at it like it means something incomprehensible. “Here it goes,” he says.

“Just open it,” Kenma says, patience dwindling. “Please.”

Kageyama opens it.

The shop is quiet when the first step in, but soon enough there is gruff voice from the back. “Coming!”

Ukai appears in front of them with a half-scowl, and Kenma sees Kageyama’s knees go weak.

“He’s not the king,” Kenma whispers to Kageyama, annoyed. “Act like you always do.”

Kageyama straightens up, unusually stiff, but Kageyama is always awkward, so Kenma will let it slide.

Kenma does not actually know if he would act any different in front of kings. He wonders if they would even look different enough from normal people for Kenma to know. But he doesn’t care too much about that. What he does care about is right now, and teaching Kageyama how to not let nerves get the better of him.

“Hey, kid,” Ukai greets, and Kenma waves in return. Ukai turns towards Kageyama with a sharp look, and maybe Kenma can see why Kageyama is scared. Even so, it shouldn’t keep him from doing anything.

“Hey,” Kageyama says. “You’re Ukai.”

“Obviously,” Ukai responds. “You’re the kid who sprained your ankle a while back, right? What’re you here for?”

Kageyama launches into a very rushed explanation, tripping over his words and doubling back without any reason. “So—uh—actually, back then—“

Kenma cuts him off. “He’s here to find a different medium of magic, other than a wand. I figured we should ask you since you know so much.”

Ukai hums in thought. “Are you sure you just haven’t found the right wand?” he asks. “I’ve heard about Ayako’s sword, but she has magic rolling off her in waves, and she’s not from this country.”

Kageyama shakes his head. “I’ve tried every wand,” he says, “The shape, the material, none of it feels right.”

Ukai shrugs. “It took me years to get the wand I have. You sure about this?”

Kageyama pulls out his wand—black with fangs of midnight blue. He uses the spike on the end to scratch out a circle on the wood, and he casts the spell. There is a single drop of water on the circle, and he looks back at Ukai defiantly.

“Sorry about your floor, sir,” Kageyama says, “but I’m pretty sure wands don’t work for me.”

Ukai nods and traces a symbol in the air, writing little number in the margins. The scratches on the floor disappear. “No wands,” he agrees. “Let’s just throw some stuff at you and see what works.

He tosses Kageyama a dragon crystal, devoid of the swirling light Kenma usually sees inside. “Try that,” he commands, pointing to the inkwell and brush on the windowsill. “I’m no expert on wands, but I know better than most idiots about magical things.”

Kageyama sniffs. “The wand person said I was bad at magic.”

Ukai laughs disbelievingly. “They can’t see magic, then.”

Kenma steps away from Kageyama, just in case, and motions for him to go ahead. Kageyama crouches on the floor, drawls the sign for water, and tries again. The crystal fills up with blue light, but nothing happens.

“Hm,” Ukai says, turning towards Kenma. “Kid, any suggestions?”

“Hey,” Kenma tells Kageyama. “Give me your bag.”

Gingerly, Kageyama hands the bag over to him. Kenma unclips it and shows the contents to Kageyama. “Pick a brush.”

The brush that Kageyama picks is thin and delicate, and he holds it with the kind of familiarity that an artist has with their tools. “Oh,” Kageyama gasps. He nods to himself. “Thank you, Kenma,” he says, and without stalling, grabs the inkwell and paints a magic circle with sweeping strokes.

Kenma tenses in anticipation.

“Is it easier to write magic circles with that?” Ukai asks, as Kageyama draws it. “It doesn’t make a difference.”

Almost instantaneously, the circle glows, sparks lighting up on the paintbrush in intricate patterns, much like veins on skin. A thin spiral of water climbs up from the circle, and reaches up to the ceiling.

Kageyama grins, and Kenma can feel the magic in the air. It feels—warm. Familiar. Good.

His shoulders relax. “Good,” he says. “I’m glad that works.”

Kageyama’s smile immediately turns shy. “I didn’t know you noticed that.” Then he shrugs. “But you’ve got good eyes.”

“Yes,” Ukai says, turning towards Kenma. “I suppose so.” He offers a smile that is supposed to be comforting, but it makes Kenma’s hairs stand on edge. “You’re going to be _something_ in the future, for the certain.”

_Maybe I don’t want to be something,_ Kenma thinks. _Maybe I just want to be me._ He thinks about the world knowing him, and the thought is uncomfortable. _Maybe I like being insignificant_ , Kenma thinks. _It’s easier than believing you’ll be great._

He looks at Kageyama’s shining eyes and does not voice the thought.

_This is okay,_ Kenma thinks. _He’ll be okay. He’s not me, so he’ll be okay._

He shudders at the thought. If anyone else was him—if they _lived_ him—he would hate it.

Everything Kenma has experienced with demons, he would like to keep to himself. Even the things that were not necessarily bad he would like to keep to himself.

There is a strange feeling in his heart that he cannot quite figure out.

They talk, sometimes. Not with words. But his dreams carry things like smiles or confidence or nervousness and Kenma ties all those whispers up into a neat little bow. He sticks it in his heart where no one can find it.

 

_There’s a soft singing coming from the void. Kenma steps closer and closer. The figure shifts. Kenma stretches out his hand. It falls onto something soft, like feathers. There’s laughter, and then he feels the song all around him. The void opens. He falls._

 

Kenma wakes up in a cold sweat. He’s not scared.

But he’s terrified of feeling so—so strongly. Feeling _something_. It haunts him in the sunrise like the warmest of orange golds.

Kenma stares up at the sun, and turns his back, stepping back inside. He’s shivering.

Perhaps he likes his life a lot more than he initially believed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me @ sonnets-of-beauty and whatever
> 
> actually though i would like love to talk about this fic so hmu


	5. where to begin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2 years have not made things clearer. The mystery still makes his heart ache. 
> 
> There are things he cannot have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im a liar. anyways,, cannot have weekly updates anymore bc school is killing me.  
> this is a short scene that just couldn't fit into the other chapter because it's a timeskip

_On Magic_ has been sitting at his bedside for over two years, and Kenma has not read any of it. Its printed script is still just as golden, and Kenma knows it contents about as well as he does his father. He shifts in his bed. Maybe he should just give it to Kageyama.

Kenma sighs. He’ll get to it eventually.

He grabs the book he’s currently working through, hugs it close, and then soon enough, he is sleeping.

The misty gray or blurry room does not greet him. Instead, his vision is clear and he is lying down in his bedroom. When he sits up, book in his hands, the dream demon is staring at him, chin high.

That’s incorrect. There are faint gray lines where perhaps his nose might be, but for the most part, he is just a silhouette with no defining features. Really, the absence of everything makes Kenma feel more uneasy than usual when he looks at the dream demon’s blurry figure. Magic seems to roll off him in waves. _He’s gotten more powerful_ , Kenma thinks, and then wonders if demons can even use magic like the magic in his books.

“Hi.” The dream demon’s voice is raspy, like he hasn’t used it in years _. Maybe the last time he used it was when I talked to him,_ a traitorous voice inside his head whispers. But Kenma shakes it off, because the chances of that seem minimal.

Despite the uneasy feeling the silhouette gives him, he can’t help but feel like he’s just having a conversation with another human.

 _Maybe it’s the voice,_ Kenma thinks, _that makes him seem human. Maybe it’s a trick._

Kenma sighs. He idly wonders when he started separating the thought of demons and dream demon apart. They’ve always seemed so different to him, but he wonders if he should treat them the same. _Maybe the voice is a trick._

He entertains the thought, but it feels too weird of a path to continue down on.

“Um, I just—” The dream demon does not finish his sentence. “I’m so, so sorry,” he says. “I’d leave you alone, but then the other demons would find you, like before, and—” He swallows. “That wasn’t good, I think. Anyways, I’ll be gone in a few days, and I just wanted to make sure you’d be okay.”

Kenma shrugs.

“Alright, that’s good, I think?” the dream demon says. “I don’t know why you’re not talking but, like, I can understand it after everything I’ve done to you.”

He exhales shakily. “I’ve pretty much made you go through hell.” He shakes his head after the weight of that seems to sink into his shoulders. If Kenma closes his eyes, he can envision a figure as awkward with itself as Kageyama is.

“Anyways,” the dream demon continues, “if you could give me your hand, I can give you protection so that they won’t hurt you.”  
Kenma raises an eyebrow.

“Not a trap,” the dream demon says. There’s a faint smile to be seen in the silhouette. “Trust me, I’m always this nice.”  
At this, Kenma smirks, and the dream demon turns his head. “Well, I guess you wouldn’t know that, but—trust me?”

Kenma holds out his left hand.

The dream demon takes his hand with a gentleness Kenma has never felt before. His touch feels strange; electric, in a way. He can feel something soft brush across his arm, and like a flash, it is gone. When he looks at his hand, there’s a leaf pattern on his palm, stems etched in black in across the lines of his palm and glittery gold leaves hanging off the sides.

It pulses with a steady kind of power that reassures him.

“It won’t be visible during the day,” the dream demon assures. “Just stay safe, okay?” His eyes shine with kindness, and Kenma thinks that maybe the dream demon is right. Maybe he is always this kind.

It that thought and the warmth and the feelings swirling underneath his skin that makes Kenma want to open his mouth. Say something, anything. Maybe a thank you. But he feels like if he does that, he’ll be breaking an unspoken promise about demons, and then everything will break.

He cannot make his mother worry again, even if he trusts the dream demon.

So he just fists his hands into his tunic and nods, trying not to get choked up. He wants something more, and he trusts more than he should, and he’s not a good person, but he _wants_.

What, he’s not quite sure.

But Kenma cannot make her worry, so he just opens his book and tries to read.

The dream demon hovers above him for a few moments. He says, “I don’t know why I care about you. Why I like being here. Why I exist.”

Kenma looks up at him. He does not know how to convey the longing and curiosity he feels.

“You’re an important person, somehow,” the dream demon says, “and I wish I could know more about you, but I can’t.” He smiles at that, melancholy in a way that Kenma feels wholeheartedly.

“Today, I can’t wait the night out,” the dream demon says. “And you probably wanted to read some more, but you can’t.”

Kenma rolls his eyes. As if he would be able to focus.

The dream demon laughs. “This is weird,” he says, staring up at the ceiling. “You’re my age, and this is really weird because I think I know more than you do but I also don’t know anything.”

Kenma snorts. If the dream demon is nine years old, it really explains the weirdness and the gloominess. He’s probably just as lonely as Kenma is.

Again, he feels that longing. Kenma bites his lip to keep his mouth shut.

“Close your eyes or it’ll feel weird,” the dream demon tells him.

Kenma closes his eyes, and the warmth in his hand seems to spread through him.

He falls asleep—into the deepest, sweetest sleep that makes kids dream of fairytales and distant places.


	6. somewhere in the desert there's a forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s eyes all around him. He gathers all the books together, closes his eyes, and proceeds to straighten them out. Even in the dark of closed eyes, his vision is as sharp as ever—just different.
> 
> There are pink spots dancing in his vision. Dark olive greens that dance like snakes and nip at his heels. Spiders crawling and strangling it all to death. Poison on the floor, hissing and gurgling, a smile of the brightest whitest teeth that opens into a gaping maw. Gold lights above, glimmering. His heart thundering so loud it feels like a vision in itself. Amber eyes crying chalk dust and harsh purple ribbons wrapped around them and squeezing and squeezing till the blood _bursts—_
> 
> It is like a war. The world around him swirls in chaos. And it’s real, to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a long chapter to make up for my absence!!! one of these scenes gave me so much trouble and i still think it's kind of clunky, but i hope it works!!!

When he wakes up, he sees a glimpse of the leaf pattern, and the first thought that crosses his mind is _liar_ , but then it shimmers and disappears, leaving him confused and guilty.

 _It’s mine only,_ he thinks, and the fact that he’s holding _magic_ in his arms makes him shiver in excitement.

The warmth in his hand haunts him in the way that lingering sweetness and fading memories do; always there and almost disappearing but not quite. He goes to classes and he writes and he learns but the warmth is always there, sweeping up from his hand to the arm to the back of his neck and then around him like a shroud.

He saw his reflection once and stared at it in shock because face was flushed pink.

He draws stares, like always, but there are different stares, far too long and assessing than the quick furtive glances he usually gets. In class, Kenma sits straight and dutifully ignores everyone. Out in the halls, Kenma tries to pull the warmth back into its original place, until it finally seems to settle in his arms and hands and nowhere else.

He hugs his books to his chest and feels them respond, humming with energy. The people around him don’t say a word.

Kenma ducks his head, letting his hair fall over his eyes, and walks to his next class.

There is laughter in the hallways. It is loud and booming and Kenma squeezes his eyes shut before opening them again, as if he could turn off his hearing with his eyes.

Kenma clutches his books tighter and increases his pace.

He can feel his heart thudding in his head, and he really wants this to stop, but he doesn’t hate the warmth itself. But the attention—the eyes, the disgust—he _hates_ all of it.

He crashes into someone without looking, and he falls to the floor, books clattering to the ground with a sound that is too sharp and disgusting for Kenma to feel anything but fear. He scrambles for his books, but the boy is already swiping them up, reading the titles with an all too nosy expression. Kenma is left to gather his papers and ink in silence as the boy scrutinizes him from head to toe.

He would sigh were he not so afraid. But the tension and the noise is building to something, so Kenma swallows and does not cry. That would be awful, after all.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the boy asks, when Kenma reaches for the books clutched in the boy’s grubby hands. Kenma frowns.

“They’re my books,” he says, trying not to panic. He is all too aware that he is not nearly strong enough to be in a fight.

“They’re my _books!_ ” the boy mimics, pitching his voice to be high and squeaky. “You can’t do magic, and neither can your mother. They’re clearly not.”

Kenma’s hands are burning hot. He can feel sweat rolling down his back. “They’re mine,” he says, again.

 _That demon probably stole them,_ he hears. _Forbidden arts. How disgusting._

 _A demon let me read them,_ Kenma wants to yell, but he’s not quite sure how to feel about the demon, and he knows that saying he’s been involving himself with a demon will only get him in more trouble.

Kenma breathes in. _Some kids,_ Kageyama says _, are awful._ They’re awful and you need to move on.

 _Not worth my time,_ Kenma thinks.

“Demons can’t do magic,” the boy says, walking way too far into his personal space. He seems hesitant to touch Kenma

 _You’d be surprised,_ he thinks, but that would only make the situation worse. The best idea would be just to leave.

But he just can’t let those books go. Kageyama had given them to him as a gift. They’re _his. On Magic_ sits right at the bottom, still in the condition it had been when he’d gotten it. And Kenma cannot let go of that book.

“I’m not a demon,” Kenma says. “Now give me my books back, please.”

The boy sneers, and he holds himself up with the confidence of someone who is absolute. “You think you’re convincing anyone here? No one here likes you,” he says. “We all know you’re a demon—you sit in class like a freak and move weirdly and you never talk and your eyes are creepy! You don’t even live in the town like others.” He shakes Kenma’s books in front of his face. “And now you’re reading _this_ in a school for people _without_ magic!”

Kenma bites his lip. He is weird. He can’t disagree with that. Is he ugly? He’s never bothered to wonder.

His mother has never bothered to fuss and call him pretty. He is unlike a flower, and those are pretty, but people are not flowers.

Chatter seems to surround them from all sides. He hears people whispering to their friends.

_who’s he—looks like a demon, doesn’t he?—the teachers say he’s not, but demons are trickery—is he allowed here?—is it safe?—why’s he so strange?—dead dad case—strange mother sells flowers—they know Ukai?—yeah, they shouldn’t be allowed that close to magic—what kind of idiot—those books are useless—_

The whispers and the people become indistinguishable from one another. Kenma does not bother to hope that a soul in this school will ever show kindness.

 _Give me my books back,_ Kenma thinks.

“Shut up and leave,” the boy insists.

Kenma raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t say anything,” he responds, knowing that’s not the point.

“You’re saying something _now_ ,” the boy points out with satisfaction, and with a flourish, chucks the books to the floor. He turns away and leaves Kenma to deal with the mess and the sharp drop in his stomach.

Kenma sees the books bounce onto the dirty wood and he thinks that he can sees the pages ruffle and dirty themselves with _this—_

With this tainted place. With hands of people who are too bitter to even know that roses come in different colors and that thorns can be clipped.

Everywhere feels too hot at once. He crouches down, and with an involuntary wince, sets his stacked books on the floor, and starts to collect the books on the floor. His hands are shaking. He doesn’t want to touch these books with the disgust boiling inside of him.

There’s eyes all around him. He gathers all the books together, closes his eyes, and proceeds to straighten them out. Even in the dark of closed eyes, his vision is as sharp as ever—just different.

There are pink spots dancing in his vision. Dark olive greens that dance like snakes and nip at his heels. Spiders crawling and strangling it all to death. Poison on the floor, hissing and gurgling, a smile of the brightest whitest teeth that opens into a gaping maw. Gold lights above, glimmering. His heart thundering so loud it feels like a vision in itself. Amber eyes crying chalk dust and harsh purple ribbons wrapped around them and squeezing and squeezing till the blood _bursts—_

It is like a war. The world around him swirls in chaos. And it’s real, to him.

Everything in him builds up with the anger and pettiness and resentment he’s been harboring for three _years_ , and it feels like it’s rocketing out of him, and—

It _is_. It _is_ bursting out of him, uncontrollable and infinite. His eyes force themselves open. A shower of sparks shoot out from his hand and the boy screams as they hit him. He turns around in horror, grabbing at his arm. And then he’s grabbing at his leg like there’s a dozen different itches he can’t get rid of. His eyes glaze over, and in ten seconds, his knees tremble, and then he slumps to the floor, dead to the world.

Kenma scoops up the books, smoothing out the curled pages, dusting them off, and stacking them into a neat pile. His left hand is shaking, and he can see the pattern on the back of his hand, like it has bled through from his palm. The black stems seep into the pattern of his veins, and they stretch up, up, up, trailing across his skin with a shivery sensation that makes Kenma feel like he’s floating. He can feel the gold leaves unfurl, and more importantly, he can feel the crowd staring at him.

 _Run?_ The leaves seem to ask.

Kenma agrees, and he dashes out of the school. He seems to move faster than everyone else, leaping across rooms faster than humanly possible, and within a minute, he is out in the gardens that no one bothers to watch or tend to.

Kenma curls up and takes a minute to breathe. He touches the shifting ink on his arm. Ayako has her butterfly, but it is nothing like this.

 _Did it just talk to me?_ he thinks.

 _He speaks!_ A voice sounds in his brain. _Or, uh, thinks, I guess. You okay?_

 _...Yes,_ Kenma answers. He’s already screwed. Right now, he has nothing to lose by talking with a demon.

 _I heard that, and I’m offended,_ the dream demon responds, not missing a beat. _It’s me, and—oh—oh no—uh, I know I’m not supposed to be here doing daylight, but it was instinct, alright?—no no no no—I have to go, but you can invoke me if you need—_

And then the voice is gone.

Kenma sucks in a deep breath. _Need what?_ he thinks. _Need magic? Need a normal life?_

He needs to pause. Time to think. So he opens up a book and starts working through it. Kenma traces patterns in the grass. _Balance_ , he thinks. _Balance and logic_. His heartbeat seems to go back to normal.

 _And everything else,_ Kenma thinks. _The beautiful unknown._

Paradise, perhaps.

Kenma wonders if there is a god up there watching him. Maybe a lioness with fur that shimmers like dragonfly wings. Perhaps six human hands will pluck these demons from the air, fingers entwined with lotus flowers, and then the world will be like crystalline water. Clear, but not too much.

But he’s insignificant in the grand scheme of things.  

He sighs. It feels like he’s trying to expel all the excitement out of him without exploding.

 _Magical_ , he thinks, tracing circles on the ground. The symbols he writes aren’t any that he knows of, but he feels the response of it deep in his bones. Something swells in his heart. Maybe he knows something the entire world does not.

The thought scares him and gives him a thrill.

He does not want to be great. But he doesn’t want to disappear.

Kenma stays curled up in the garden for a little longer, before he finally stretches, lying down on the grass and staring up at the clouds for a few moments before getting up and checking out the flowers. Some he recognizes, but some are totally unfamiliar. Actually, most are unfamiliar. It reminds him of how little he’s been thinking about flowers lately and it leaves a sour taste in his mouth that he can’t quite swallow.

 _I’ve been dreaming lately,_ he thinks, and he closes his eyes. For once, it settles into a hazy black. He’s been dreaming for quite a while.

When he opens them, he hears the bell tower signal the end of school, and Kenma picks up his books, putting them properly inside his bag. He breathes in.

He doesn’t know if his real life is when he’s awake or asleep, but he thinks that he can’t let this go on too long. Part of him wants to wallow in misery.

But the dream demon is leaving for a while anyways.

Things will only grow worse if he does nothing but dream all day. He needs to find something that actually will have an end result. Otherwise, he’ll be caught up in a storm of things and won’t be able to control any piece of it.

When he was very little, he would wake to the smell of flowers and _know_ exactly how his life would go. It’s a certainty he misses.

Kenma thinks he needs that. Maybe all he needs is something normal.

His eyes zero in on a raven darting through the sky. Its flight path is a streak of black shimmer.

 _Bad omen,_ Kenma thinks, and then rubs at his eyes. _Bad eyes,_ he thinks. He’s not supposed to see things like this.

He stands up and begins the trek home.

 

* * *

 

_The world is dark. He is alone, but not lonely. He feels that something is trying to creep into the edge of his thoughts, but as soon as he feels it, it fades into peaceable silence. Nothing moves to attack him. He does not remember sinking into terror. Instead, the last thing Kenma remembers is closing his eyes to think._

 

And then he is opening his eyes to the morning.

 _That’s what sleeping is like,_ Kenma recalls. Somehow his body feels no different than the night in which he is awake in dreamscape.

But he does not miss the dream demon. Not in the least.

Not yet, at least.

Kenma slinks out of bed in a lazy movement. He yawns, stretching, and changes into his gardening wear. His mother is already there when he walks out, pulling at weeds with delicate precision.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” She smiles. “You don’t have to tend to the garden while I’m right here, doing my job,” she says.

“I wanted to ask you about flower meanings,” Kenma says, avoiding her gaze. “Since we never really got to do much of that.”

“Well, that’s not your fault,’ his mother assures. “We’ve been through a lot.”

Kenma fiddles with his fingers, and then drops down to the ground, feeling the scents of the flowers wash over him. Surprisingly, they’re not overwhelming unless you get too close.

“I do want to learn,” Kenma says.

“You want to learn everything,” his mother responds with fondness. “You’ve got a passion for it.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Kenma mumbles. “It’s normal to want to learn about something you’re mildly interested in.” _With someone you care about,_ he adds in his head.

“Mild,” his mother repeats, disbelieving.

Kenma shrugs. “It’s not a life commitment yet,” he says, and she laughs.

“Fair point,” she concedes, and shows the yellow flowers she’s grabbed in her hands.

“Dandelions love to grow almost anywhere,” she tells him. “They’re a very common weed. If you know the legends, dandelions are said to be like hungry lions, feasting on any available prey. To very spiritual people, they’re signs that you’ve been infested by demons.” She glances towards him when she says _demons_ , and Kenma doesn’t let his face show anything. He doesn’t know how to explain that he barely knows what demons are. That he doesn’t know if everything about them is as horrible as it’s made out to be. Because he’s felt the pain and the torture, but he doesn’t even know what demons are, or what _purity_ is.

She sighs. “Of, course, it’s not true. They just grow very easily, and tend to grow instead of the flowers that are supposed to be growing.” She stares at the flowers for a long while after that. “You’re young,” she says. “Pain will be forgotten easily enough.”

Kenma bites his lip. “Okay,” he says, trying not to wander too far down the rabbit hole of thoughts. “Tell me some other meanings?”

His mother hums. “You want romantic ones or other things?”

He grimaces. “Please, non-romantic.”

“Too young,” his mother says to herself in agreement. She sighs. “Well, not really. But it’s not something you need to be worrying about.”

“I know,” Kenma says.

She ruffles his hair.

“So, uh, marigolds are cruelty and catastrophe,” his mother says, pointing to a cluster of flowers in shades ranging from yellow to red. Arranged all together, they seem to be like flowers on fire. “Most people don’t know that, but I try not to give marigolds out to many people.”

She turns towards a bright red cluster of large flowers. “These are amaryllis,” she explains. “Red as blood, and they mean pride and beauty.”

“Blood is darker,” Kenma points out.

“It’s the same striking feeling, though,” his mother says. She points to another cluster which she identifies as larkspur. “They mean levity, which is like…lightness. Freedom of being.” Kenma repeats the words and meanings silently.

After a few quick explanations, her hand moves to a flower that looks like a delicate arrangement of orange spikes. She smiles and her hand ghosts across the petals. “These are Ayako’s favorites,” she tells him. “Birds of paradise. They often mean magnificence, but can sometimes mean joyfulness, as well. Ayako says they mean greatness unparalleled, which really fits her.”

“That seems a bit prideful,” Kenma says.

His mother smirks. “Oh, she’ll become humble one day. But for now, she’s got the skills to back it up.”

“Birds of paradise,” Kenma repeats. “That’s a strange name.”

“They’re very tropical,” his mother answers. “Don’t you just think of pretty islands? Like orange-pink sunsets and warmth, and, well, birds flying above with gorgeous colors. And things that are sweet.”

“I’ve never been anywhere like that,” Kenma mumbles. But when he feels the warmth in his arm, he can almost taste a summer breeze, and he thinks of pink and sweetness and he can almost imagine it.

She hums. “Just imagine fresh fruit,” she tells him, and Kenma does. He thinks that maybe he’s read a fairytale on an island like this, when the girl had dove under the sea into a crystal castle.

“Ayako’s magic is what keeps these flowers safe and healthy,” his mother explains. “In fact, I often have Ukai and her help with growing the flowers here. Apparently this place is just a very magic receptive place, and that’s why these different flowers have grown so well here.” She laughs. “I haven’t asked them to help out in years, but the spells don’t seem to fade. They even shift when the flowers grow in different places.”

She frowns. “That _is_ magic she does, right? Not a strange ritual or anything. She’s taken Kageyama as a successor after all, and I don’t think you pass down it to any random person you accidentally adopt. Kageyama’s obviously there to learn magic, not any other strange thing.”

“It isn’t so strange,” Kenma rebukes softly. “It’s just magic. There are things stranger than that.

“Like demons,” his mother says.

He nods. “Kageyama’s really good at magic,” Kenma adds. “That’s probably why she likes that he’s learning her style of magic. He’s very…instinctive.” He inches closer to the cluster of amaryllis flowers. This close up, he can see stripes of darker red running down the petals, so dark they do in fact remind him of blood.

“As opposed to you?” his mother challenges. “You figure out spells so fast.”

Kenma shrugs. “It’s like math,” he says. “See enough and it’s really just something for each situation. There’s no ambiguity to it, if you’re not casting it.”

“Like flowers?” his mother asks, and Kenma nods. “Yeah. You can use them for different situations, but the flowers always have the same meaning.”

“Flowers have different meanings, though,” his mother says.

“But you can’t change what they mean based on a whim,” Kenma says. “Like uh, like nightmares that change and distort. But magic’s always the same. It’s the caster that changes it.”

“Sometimes, the meaning of flowers change based on the memories you have with them, and that’s something magic doesn’t do,” his mother says. “Information you either do or do not have. Is that what your nightmares are like?”

Kenma shrugs. “I haven’t had nightmares in a while,” he says. “Maybe things have already changed. From nightmares to dreams is good, right?”

His mother laughs. She plucks another dandelion out of the ground. “Here’s to hoping it lasts,” she says.

And with that, she bundles up the dandelions with a string. She holds them up to Kenma. “I can put them in your hair,” she offers.

He wrinkles his nose in disgust. “Those are weeds.”

She shrugs. “They’re pretty,” she says. “And it’s not like they’re not good flowers. In fact, they’re quite lovely, but I can’t have them taking the water from my other flowers. They’re just flowers in the wrong place and unintentionally causing harm by doing so. Do you think they mean to be here?”

Kenma shakes his head.

“They’re perfectly fine,” his mother reassures. “And don’t worry, there’s probably someone who wants dandelions in their hair.”

“Can’t you make it into a hair accessory?”

His mother sighs. “I’m afraid they’ll think it too cheap. People want things that are magical more than they want my silly crafts.” She drops the dandelions into a bag. “Do you think Ayako would like them?”

“Wait, wait,” Kenma says. Closing his eyes, he concentrates. “Larkspur is… levity,” he says. “Or, uh, lightness, because that’s what levity means. Birds of paradise are magnificence, and marigolds are cruelty.”

“And amaryllis?”

He opens his eyes and shrugs. “Forgot it.”

“Pride and beauty,” she answers.

Kenma runs into the house. After the feel of sun shining on his back and his mother next to him, the rooms are chilly and desolate. He grabs ink and a bound, empty book. It was intended for diaries, but Kenma doesn’t think he has a life worth writing about.

“I think Ayako would love any flower accesory you made,” he tells her, just remembering what she’d asked. “Anyways, could you tell me those meanings again?”

His mother smiles. “I’ll make a bracelet for her, then,” she decides, and then recites the meanings of each flower she’d went over and then some others.

Kenma copies down the meanings with a careful eye. His lines are impeccably straight, but there’s no discernible order since the list will only grow.

“There’s a book for this, probably,” his mother says.

“But I want to learn this from you,” Kenma replies.

When Kenma’s writing, he can almost understand why the paintbrush is so important to Kageyama. He may not know how to paint, but he knows what ink does to someone. It stains them. It colors them.

You read words and you become filled with life. Kenma has been studying magic for over half a year now, and every time he closes his eyes and thinks of ink, his mind is drawn back to fairy tales. There’s a feeling there that magic cannot create, only enhance, only bring to light and life.

Kenma is filled with ink and thoughts and writing but the only thing he’s been doing with ink is bleeding. He feels everything slip in and spread from the page to the hand in a mess of black and blue splashes. The parchment is crisp and clean and Kenma blows the ink dry.

He holds the words close to him like a truth he cannot forget. He remembers that the world is full of color. He presses flowers in between the sheets, and on some days, Kageyama will draw nothing but those flowers Kageyama has pressed as Kenma arranges flowers into delicate arrangements. It is a shared feeling, that joy. Ayako has been teaching Kageyama how to move colors, and while it’s only a temporary motion, Kenma is often spellbound.

There is not much difference between flowers and magic, he thinks. Flowers mean something greater than what they are, and magic symbols mean more than swirls of ink or inscriptions burned in the ground. But when he thinks of his mother smiling and laughing with him in the garden, he thinks that maybe there is something more to it. That flowers transcend anything magical. In each flower Kenma can hold a memory that no symbol can encompass. And in each flower Kenma can speak to someone’s heart with a feeling no magic can create.

 

* * *

 

_It is dark. He is alone. But Kenma does not miss him._

_He does not miss him. Still, something is missing._

_There is an indescribable feeling in his chest that he falls asleep with, and he wakes up with the same almost-ache._

_It is dark. He is missing something._

_Two months is perhaps longer than expected. It’s not bad. There is nothing bad about it. But he is missing something._

_Perhaps he has lost something._

_Perhaps the dream demon is lost. Perhaps he will never find his way back._

_There’s a word for it—melancholy. Thinking too much without any answer._

_It is dark. Maybe he misses him. Maybe he is not lonely, but maybe he is not as happy as he should be._

_What would I need, he wonders. What would I need for him to come back. Do I need him at all?_

_The warmth in his arms lingers like a phantom. He does not know whether to cry over it or feel joy. But thoughts are never too long when he’s sleeping like this._

_When he closes his eyes, all he can think of is warmth and golden leaves._

 

Kenma wakes up and realizes that he’s never wanted to cast magic in his entire life. He’s just wanted to understand. To feel. And he’s not scared anymore.

He thinks that if he didn’t push him away, they might have been friends.

The tears start falling from his eyes and he belatedly thinks, _maybe I miss dreaming._

 

* * *

 

Physical pain is easily forgotten.

The other ones never do seem to heal quite right.

 

* * *

 

He’s arranging dried hydrangeas and carnations when his mother asks him if he wants to make a bouquet for a customer.

“Early birthday present,” she says, with a smile.

“It’s in a _week_ , you can just call it a birthday present.” Kenma says, and then asks, “What kind?”

“Big,” his mother replies. “Roses are required. Lots of them. You may be able to sneak by with a few other things.” She smirks. “I figured even if you’re my apprentice, there’s not a single way for you to even mess this up.”

“I’m a prodigy,” Kenma quips. “I’ve got ‘good eyes,’ remember?” He pauses with his arrangement, spinning around on the floor to face his mother. “What’s the bouquet for?”

“Wedding proposal,” his mother says.

Kenma groans. “There’s no way I can balance out all those roses,” he gripes. “This is the hardest challenge ever, actually. I can’t believe you.”

His mother shakes her head, and her smile turns from teasing into knowing. He has the feeling he’s about to receive some sort of lecture. Perhaps it’s about the magic circles strewn across the room. Kenma like to think of it as its own sort of balance; flower arrangements, delicate and refined, and shoddy magical circles strewn about.

It’s certainly easier than admitting he’s having trouble with magic or that he’s messy.

A lot of it might have to with the fact that he still he’s finished all the beginner books and hasn’t so much as glanced at _On Magic_. It’s the idea of taking on such a big project that scare shim. Without extra time to read in the night, he’s been more aware about how easy it is to spend the day away.

In that line of logic, it only seems right to focus on flowers, with Kageyama succeeding in his magic studies and Kenma without any practical application to magical studies. It doesn’t mean he stopped completely, but ever since, his experiences with magic have felt like absolute garbage. There’s a wall in his head he just can’t seem to get rid of.

He combs his fingers through his hair. “Is this mandatory?” he asks.

“Yes,” his mother says. “And you know, you don’t have to balance bouquets.”

Kenma frowns. “Then it’s not a good bouquet.”

“Wrong,” his mother tells him. “Bouquets can be full to bursting with one color and as long as the meanings there, the other person will love it.”

“That’s tacky,” Kenma grumbles.

“And ostentatious,” his mother agrees. “But some people like it like that. Some people think it’s perfect like that. Bouquets are for the customer, after all.”

“And arrangements aren’t?”

“Arrangements are made to be admired,” his mother explains. “And that careful balance of yours is admired.”

“I think people hate me,” Kenma argues. After that time with the leaves, people have avoided him in large swaths. There have been requests to move him, but as no one can prove anything, he stays. Being isolated and stared at is, at the very least, better than being stared at and pushed around.

For the first few days after the incident, people without any critical thinking skills had pulled at his hands and arms and furiously examined it for any ink marks, because ink doesn’t leave without a trace. After the fifth one, they’d seen the tips of his fingers turn dark blue, and little shocks had traveled up the students’ bodies.

They’d stopped searching after that, but people still stare at his hands like they expect golden leaves to grow and for lighting to come out of his fingers.

Kenma knows that it won’t happen again. There was no voice in his head that time. And after that, there’s no ink or voices.

He still feels it, though. Just differently. The ink just stains the world instead of him, and stains his blood instead of skin. He curls his hand into a fist, and though it’s faint, he can feel it glow with energy.

And the voices are just his own head, this time.

“That doesn’t mean they don’t admire you,” his mother says. “And they don’t have to know it’s yours. Now come on.”

Kenma swallows and follows her out to the garden. “I haven’t been bad for business, have I?” he asks.

“Of course not,” his mother tells him. Her eyes are fierce as she crouches down with him. “You know your roses, right?”

Kenma nods.

“Then get to work, silly.”

Kenma heads towards the red roses first, because if they want tacky and ostentatious, he’ll give them that.

His mother hums. “There’s something you’re missing,” she says.

He furrows his brows. “What is it?”

“Who is he proposing to? What do they like?”

Kenma stops. “Red roses are romantic,” he states.

“But what kind of romance does this person want?” his mother says. “If it were only red roses, I’d have made it in a minute.”

“Well, then,” Kenma says. “Give me a minute.”

He grabs a fresh journal from his room, and, as promised, is back outside in a minute. He sits on an empty patch of grass and looks her in the eye. “Tell me about them.”

His mother smiles. “Well, she’s a very happy, bright person. She dances a lot, and she loves fine china. She’s very graceful. This man compared her to ‘an angel with no wings,’ specifically.”

“So, a human?” Kenma deadpans, but he writes down _fine china, happy, dancer,_ and _bright_ in bullet points.

“A human with some talents. They’re both very in love,” his mother responds. She chuckles. “And full of energy. He came running up here, you know? I was afraid he was going to barrel through our front door, until he turned and made his way into the side store. Apparently they were each other’s first significant other, and still are. Sweet, don’t you think?”

“Orange, pink, and white,” Kenma declares when her spiel in finished. When he looks up from his journal, his mother is grinning.

“I think you’ve found it,” she says. “Now get to work.”

“There’s balance in this one,” Kenma says. “I thought you said it wasn’t supposed to be like that.”

“Balances are always different,” his mother says. “Some happen to work. And some fit the person. Besides, this is a big bouquet. I think the size is enough for you to hate it.”

“It doesn’t feel tasteful,” Kenma complains. “But I can see the appeal, I guess. A lot is a lot.”

“Well, the customers don’t have any taste,” she jokes, “but they’ve also got a lot of love, I guess.”

“Less is more,” Kenma mutters, but he continues with his work.

Kenma cannot understand the sentiment, but there’s something beautiful in that moment that he cannot describe. Being so full with love that you go beyond, that everything in life grows bigger and brighter.

“I feel too young for this,” he murmurs. “The love thing.” Roses are beautiful, but are they _lovely?_ Are they full of the feeling Kenma has no idea about?

“You’ll be ten in just a month,” his mother says. “Will you feel too young then?”

“I think I’ll always be too young,” Kenma says. “To learn about flowers. About love. About magic.” Kenma imagines love must be like the sun, bright and blinding. Something so wonderful, so consuming that you lose yourself in it.

“You’ll find it, if it’s what you want,” his mother tells him. “But it doesn’t have to be anywhere near now.” She clears her throat. “Do you—do you know what your father used to say?”

“No, you never told me about him,” Kenma responds.

“Ask if you want to know, then,” His mother replies. “Though it doesn’t seem like you want to.”

“I don’t particularly want to,” Kenma agrees. “It’s not like it matters.”

“He said that everything and everyone starts out as a stranger. That you always need to take the time to learn about something.”

“Know your enemy?” Kenma asks, and she laughs.

“I think he meant it along the lines of ‘know your friend,’ but sure. Know your enemy. Know everyone.”

Kenma knows some of what he’s up against. But he cannot fight it. Fighting it is such a foolish thought. Not every problem can be punched into submission, and if it could, Kenma is certainly not strong enough.

He continues to work on the flowers. He pieces together the orange and pink and white and makes sure the petals are perfect, and then for fun, adds five purple lilacs. He presents it to his mother when he’s finished, and she looks it over with a critical eye.

“You think he’ll like it?” she asks.

Kenma nods.

“Then it’s good,” his mother tells him. “It’s really good.”

The man arrives at the store tomorrow, too impatient to wait. He’s tapping with his foot as Kenma presents the flowers, and when he sees them, his foot hits the ground and stops.

“They’re beautiful,” he says, voice cracking. Kenma hands the bouquet over to his shaky hands. “They…they really look like her, you know? I really hope this works out. I just—” He wipes his tears with his free hand, and passes some coins over to Kenma’s mother. “The rest of the payment,” he says. “What do the flowers mean? Roses are for love, of course, but I don’t know what the other flowers are.”

His mother shoots a look at Kenma. He nods to himself and clears his throat, gaining the man’s attention. “Orange roses mean enthusiasm, and desire. They’re very energetic and lively. Pink roses mean grace, admiration, and sweetness. And white roses are purity and innocence. Those other flowers are lilacs. They symbolize first loves.”

The man rubs at his eyes again. “They really are beautiful,” he says, choked up, and then he exits the store with the face of someone who’s had his life changed.

Immediately, Kenma turns to his mother. “Does that always happen?” he asks. “The crying. The feelings.”

“No,” his mother replies. “But we did something very important for him on a very special day.”

“Then I guess that’s good.”

“It is,” his mother says. “It really is.”

They both stare at the door for a while.

“What was it like?” he asks.

“What was what like?”

“Meeting my father.”

His mother sighs. “He was… oh, I don’t know. It was nice to be around him. It was calm. I like that peace, and then I fell in love, and then there was you, and then he died.”

“How’d you get over it so fast?” he asks, because he can't remember his mother wallowing in sadness or crying tears.

She swallows, staring out into space. “I’m not over it,” she says. “It’s just… it’s different. He was always traveling, you know, so I’d gotten used to him being away, and then he died, and it was just like he was away forever. And I had you to take care of, and there were better things to do than cry. So I learned to cope. And eventually, I met people, and they helped me heal.”

“Did you love him?” Kenma asks.

“Yes.” His mother says. “I still love him, but you can fall in love twice.”

Kenma raises an eyebrow. “Are you…”

His mother clears her throat, embarrassed. “Nope. I’m not dating anyone. If I do, I’ll tell you.”

“How can you feel that strongly for someone and then not?” he asks.

His mother shrugs. “It depends. Sometimes the attraction fades and then it’s just a sweet sort of memory. Sometimes you love but you can love more than just one person. Sometimes you were never in love at all.”

Thinking about his father makes Kenma feel strange. Someone with magic in his family feels strange. Love is even stranger, and he’s glad not to have to deal with it.

She turns to face him. “Is something wrong, Kenma?”

He doesn’t know how to tell her he hasn’t felt inspired about magic in months. That he got one lightning strike and now everything is gone. That he has barely felt magic in these past few months, much less anything so grand as love.

He shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m happy you’re doing better,” his mother replies, and Kenma notices how she seems to have lost the permanent worry on her face.

“If something’s really wrong,” he promises, “I’ll tell you. Just trust me.”

“I trust you,” his mother says.

Kenma walks back into their house, slowly, careful not to break something he doesn’t understand. But something’s there and it cannot be broken.

Maybe there is a reason he has never felt things fully. _Life is so small,_ Kenma thinks. _It’s not worth it to care so intensely about something._ Maybe it’s not the love that he can’t wrap his head around; maybe it’s the lack of feeling that he can’t seem to shake. Maybe it’s just a lack of everything, after losing so much and never learning how to get everything back.

 _Life as it is good now_ , Kenma thinks. But things feel empty, and sometimes they don’t feel right.

 _Where’s the magic?_ Kenma wants to ask. _Where’s the things I thought I had?_

His body feels cold, like it’s lost all feeling.

He tries not feel like something is missing from him.

.

.

.

(but something is)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u to the two people in like the span of a week who commented on this fic and reminded me how much i liked it
> 
> also if it's not obvious, i love ayako and chinami kozume very much. i really hope you like them as well lol
> 
> find me @ sonnets-of-beauty and talk to me!!!


	7. again i've lost my strength completely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His dreams grow longer. More realistic. He trips on rocks and people laugh at him and then his body splits into two. He sees himself roll down a hill and then finds his body strewn across the village street, mouth open and eyes wide. Kenma walks up to it. He stares down at his very real hands and stares at the very real body in front of him. When he presses his hand to the other him’s chest, his heart is not beating.
> 
> Suddenly there is silence everywhere. Kenma presses his real hands to his real chest, and they pass right through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back!!!

The week leading up to his birthday is almost nightmarish.

Almost, because there are no nightmares. In fact, there’s nothing.

There’s no phantom pain or warmth in his arms. When he walks, he’s accompanied by his own thoughts and a lonely world.

And he can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching him. It’s an anticipatory paranoia, he supposes. You spend so much time seeing everything skew horrible and you expect everything to skew that way.

He dreams, now, in strange feelings that he sometimes remembers and sometimes doesn’t. Maybe the dream demon is back. Maybe demons are back. Kenma doesn’t know, so he doesn’t say anything.

For his birthday, Kenma doesn’t wish for theatrics, so he just shows up at Ayako’s house with journals tucked under his arm. He wants a normal day. Birthdays are supposed to be special, but every day of his life is stranger than fiction. To be normal would be the strangest event yet.

Kageyama’s been reading a book as Kenma stares down the magic circle he’s been drawing on paper, like he can will his creativity into submission. It’s futile; will doesn’t exist or mean anything unless you’re magical, and even then it’s a finicky thing to handle.

 _Whatever_ , he thinks, and hands it to Kageyama.

“You’ve already done this,” Kageyama points out, and Kenma sighs.

“I hate this,” he mutters. “I hate this so much.”

Kageyama frowns. “Creating spells is hard,” he points out. “I can get you new books?”

“I have books,” Kenma says through gritted teeth. It’s true. He’s got a lot of books, from beginner to intermediate to the advanced level. He’s worked his way through the basics of intermediate magic, and the further he goes, the harder it is to create anything original. At this point, Kenma’s started reading a book on magical history, just to get out all of the already created spells and ideas out of the way. The book is Kageyama’s, which should be obvious, considering how much of it is centered on demon hunters. Since there’s such a low percentage of people who can use magic, they’re often royalty, knights, mercenaries, or demon hunters. And since Ukai’s one of the only people who’s ever stored magic with dragon crystals, most normal people are left to carry on as if magic doesn’t exist.

Tangentially, Kenma wonders if he will die because of magic, one day. If one day some magical kid will mistake him for a demon and blast him with flames and not give it a second thought. If he doesn’t grow out of this awkward phase, it’s a possibility.

“Try something with plants,” Kageyama suggests. “You’re good at plants.”

“I want to be good at magic,” Kenma complains, but he scrawls down a circle on paper anyways.

Kageyama paints the circle on the floor and casts it. It shines with blue light, and a flower creeps out between the floorboards, unfurling into a blue iris. Kenma stares at it, and scribbles down the same outer circle, but he sketches a flower in the inner circle and adds a stroke into the sign for vitality.

“Paint it in blue, and try to make that flower,” he says.

“A hyacinth, right?” Kageyama mutters to himself, and then he shrugs and casts the circle.

A blue, almost purple hyacinth unfurls from the floor, slightly dimmer in color.

Kenma plucks the two flowers out of the floorboards.

“These are unnatural,” Kenma says. He flicks at the petals, and the flowers crumble like dust.

“Well, you can’t create life,” Kageyama says. “You can only harness it and change it. Or in this case, emulate it. Unless you’re super talented. Then creating flowers is no problem.” He stands up and paints some unassuming swirls on the wall of his bedroom. “I’m not too interested in life magic, though.”

“No, it’s not,” Kenma says. “I mean that you can’t speed up time like that. You can’t fast forward through growth. Otherwise there will be a certain element of wrongness or a fault you’ll find somewhere.”

Kageyama frowns. “You sure about that? I think dark arts have perfected the unnatural.”

“You’d have to give up your time in order to do that,” Kenma says. “It’s just wrong any other way.”

He frowns. “What should I write, anyways?”

“Something with water,” Kageyama suggests. “Maybe a…moving bubble, like a pocket space.”

“Already done,” Kenma grumbles, but he scribbles down a few signs. “You know what you’re doing, right?” he asks.

“Yep,” Kageyama says.

Kenma hands him a rough circle with water and air signs, and he writes some words with the script specifically reserved for magic. They’re only very general ideas, nothing specific, and when Kageyama casts the spell, it forms perfectly. Of course, the spell, like all spells that aren’t exceedingly specific, takes a few minutes to form, but it’s perfect.

Kenma feels a little jealous. When he’s writing new spells, they often take hours, because a magician can effectively bypass the need for specifics if they have enough training to simply write in their own runes as they cast. That’s exactly what Kageyama does; if he can visualize something, he can write his thought on the circle in the same time he invokes the spell and get exactly what he wants.

It’s a piece of fine-tuning Kenma has no control over.  

He buries his face in his hands and groans. “Why did I ever start this?”

Kageyama grabs a washcloth and wipes up the circles. “Because you wanted to,” he says.

Kageyama paints a quick circle on his hand and his paintbrush is washed. He goes into the wall swirls with a tinge of red, and then switches to a deep midnight blue.

Kenma watches Kageyama turn brushstrokes into fierce waves. They seem to rise out of nowhere and crash into this invisible force.

“It’s been a year since I met you,” Kageyama says. He paints a circle on the wall, and his paintbrush is clean again.

Kenma shrugs. “I guess.”

“I liked my birthday,” Kageyama says. “It was fun. How is yours feeling?”

“Frustrating,” Kenma says. “I liked yours better?”

Kageyama laughs. “I can’t believe you’re two years older than me now,” he says. “Twelve. How crazy is that?”

“You’ll be eleven in a few months,” Kenma says, “And I’ll like your birthday better, _again_.”

Kageyama keeps painting, and then with one final circle, switches his paintbrush into gold. “Close your eyes,” he commands, “and be patient.”

“Alright,” Kenma says. He doesn’t move for a long while. But he’s acutely aware of the footsteps as Kageyama dances around on the floor, and other sounds he can’t identify but sound familiar.

“Alright, stand up.” He feels a pair of arms help him get on his feet, and they hold onto his shoulders, helping him keep balance. Gently, they guide him for about twenty steps, and then turn him around. Kenma squeezes his eyes shut harder.

Kageyama clears his throat. “You can open them now,” he says.

When Kenma opens his eyes, he first sees the deep black waves, tinged with splashes of midnight blue, and he’s not sure what’s any different. And then his eyes travel up to the red and bloody sky that the waves seem to carry hints of, and then he sees the shore they crash against, a land glittering gold as if they held the sun, and crystal flowers that seem to sprout from the ground and catch the color of the sky and waves.

“It’s a painting,” Kageyama informs him. “For you.” His eyes flick over the painting as he steps back. “Those are dragon crystals,” he adds. “If you were wondering.”

Kenma feels something stuck in his throat. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you.” He feels like a broken record. But he feels. Feels everything deeply, like something in his soul has finally come back. He cannot believe how this begins. From swirls to strokes into a picture that seems like it will jump off the wall at any moment. He wonders what it would be like if Ayako’s butterfly could be this realistic.

Kageyama smiles. “Do you want to paint the circle for it to move, or should I?”

“I’ll do it,” Kenma says, “but won’t the magic fade?”

“I’ll keep it up in the sky,” Kageyama explains, and then he hands Kenma a fine paintbrush with gold-orange paint.

Kenma writes a circle with 5 different sections. He has the waves move and the sky move and has the flowers shift and the shore glow, and he feels like he knows some things about magic, at the very least. When he’s done, there is a bright light in the desolate sky.

“How’s your birthday now?” Kageyama asks.

“Much better,” Kenma murmurs, still staring at the light as it eclipses the darkness. He almost feels like he’s glowing. He thinks there are tears forming in his eyes. “I think I kind of love it.”

 _Love_ . That’s a word that he doesn’t use often, but if it’s anything, it must be _this_.

He hasn’t dreamed a while, but he dreams today. He’s stuck in an endless sea and no one is in sight. He dreams of being gold and brighter and living in vibrant colors, and his dreams turn into vivid explosions that he feels but can’t explain. He dreams, once, of a shadowy figure that he can’t explain.

He dreams of anemones scattered with the wind.

 

* * *

_Hello? Hello? Are you there? Are you there?_

_Kenma looks around, sees his visions shift whenever he sees black. Someone is calling for him._

_He turns around in a circle, slowly. He looks up and down and everywhere._

_The world shifts again, and he sees a flash of black before it disappears._

_Hello? Hello?_

_Kenma can’t see a thing._

The warning bells start to ring. Or maybe they’ve been ringing for a week already, ever since his skin turned cold.

Things start off slow. First, he dreams. He dreams in strange images and wakes up with a feeling of wrongness that haunts him throughout the day. The sense that someone is watching him still does not fade. In fact, the feeling only grows stronger, so pervasive it haunts him even during the day. He can feel people turning towards him in the hall, and he cannot understand if he looks weirder than usual or if it’s his paranoia growing.

His dreams grow longer. More realistic. He trips on rocks and people laugh at him and then his body splits into two. He sees himself roll down a hill and then finds his body strewn across the village street, mouth open and eyes wide. Kenma walks up to it. He stares down at his very real hands and stares at the very real body in front of him. When he presses his hand to the other him’s chest, his heart is not beating.

Suddenly there is silence everywhere. Kenma presses his real hands to his real chest, and they pass right through.

 

* * *

 

Kenma thinks about anemones during the day. They have a plethora of meanings, and if there’s one thing Kenma knows, it’s to take dreams seriously. Kenma is particularly hoping for the anemones to mean “protection against evil,” but “anticipation” works just fine. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s “bad luck” and “forsaken,” which hits at a particularly vulnerable spot, considering his entire life has been bad luck. And he’s been forsaken by the world at large, but more minutely, the protection instilled into his skin. No matter how hard Kenma focuses, the ink on his skin never surfaces, even though he can remember the feeling of it bleeding like how he remembers what breathing is like. He knows how it feels, because it’s natural.

After a few weeks, his dreams grow from ominous and wrong to violent and _wrong_. He sees a kid from school in a field of graves, and the grass is this horrendous mix of bright pinks, yellows, light blues, and pale greens. The boy from school screams as vines plunge through his stomach with a sound Kenma now has burned into his brain. The kid hangs like a ragdoll on the vines, blood dripping out of the hole in his chest, and then the vines swoop forward, dark green and crimson fusing into black tendrils that reach towards him. They never grab him, but just before the dream ends Kenma wakes up, fear settling in his stomach. The next night, when he falls asleep, his body gives way. He falls and scratches his face against rock, and Kenma sees himself again in the same out-of-body experience. The cut bleeds a brighter red than he thinks blood should be. He feels chills on his back and he knows someone is watching him.

He bleeds more. And then things are not just watching him, because they’re whispering about him in high, grating noises that make him want to scream.

But in most dreams, he cannot even speak.

Kenma has grown stronger, in the time without nightmares and demons. He’s learned countless spells and countless flowers. He doesn’t feel as scared when the school is staring at him, because he knows it’s all insignificant.

But none of that applies here. Kenma cannot put everything in perspective when he’s at the forefront of everything and everything centers on him. He cannot use his spells because he is alone. And when he is alone, he can do nothing with the things people have given him.

 _What kind of kindness?_ Kenma wants to ask. _What kind of protection?_ There is no lightning running down his arms.

There is a silhouette standing above him. Kenma blinks and he sees a menacing grin flash into his mind. So Kenma does not flinch away. He stares straight into the face of danger and tries to remain cold. Demons cannot do much with apathy, Kenma remembers. Eventually, they get bored, and pains are easier to bear.

He stares at the world, distorting around him and almost familiar faces pop up to him. Kenma swallows. He does not like this. He does not want this. He did not think he’d be here ever again.

It has been over a year, and Kenma has grown forgetful. Overconfident. Self-assured in his comfort and safety.

Everything turns amber, and Kenma is frozen where he stands.

Being solitary is not a problem in the real world. He has his mother. He visits Kageyama and Ayako at least once a month. But this— _this, back again_ —has no such time. Dreams have no time to follow by, and every minute Kenma spends in that amber feels like a thousand years. He watches the world move on without him, and people forget him, in time. He is struck with a profound sense of longing, but the tears are stuck in his eyes with nowhere to go.

Kenma loses his thoughts. He loses track of things. He loses hope.

He does not know where the dream demon is, but he can conclude three things as he watches the world go by.

He is cold.

He is alone.

The demons are back. Again.

 

* * *

 

Nightmares are such hard things to explain.

It's easy to explain _one_. You can talk about your fears. You can say you were scared. And then you can fall asleep and be fine again.

But then there are recurring ones.

Kenma does not know how to say that facing your fear every night does not make you stronger. That being around it does not make it lose its power. That sometimes nightmares do not recur, but start anew and delve into another horrifying thing that he cannot stomach.

 _It was easier,_ Kenma thinks, _when I was younger._ It was easier when it was the same thing and he'd eventually felt some strange sort of familiarity. It was easier when you knew every nightmare was just a demon, and even if they were scary, they were only demons. It was easier when all Kenma had to do was stay awake.

Kenma didn’t know they could hurt anyone but himself.

That’s a lie. He’s seen how they hurt his mother.

Now, as he walks through the hallways, he sees faces; familiar even though he doesn’t even know their names. The girl by the wall with the red hair had been stabbed last night by a figure he couldn’t recognize.

He’s lying about that, too. She’d been stabbed by a silhouette that had looked all too human, but Kenma hadn’t heard a voice. And even if he did, Kenma doubts his mind would ever be able to recognize all of the rising smoke emanating from the killer and blood all over as the dream demon. The dream demon is made up of shifting mysteries and inspires mixed feeling. He does not inflict violence or inspire terror—or so Kenma hopes.

Kenma wakes up in cold sweats, but he keeps sleeping, because he refuses to throw everything away. The real people themselves aren’t dying, after all.

But sometimes, all Kenma sees as he walks through school are bleeding hearts and dead bodies strewn across the floor. Sometimes he can feel himself topples to the ground, only to shake himself awake and find that he’s still walking.

It takes about a month of hoping the nightmares will end for them to actually shake him enough to tell his mother. They’ve always shaken him, of course. Things feel real in nightmares. But Kenma can deal with familiar silhouettes.

Kenma cannot deal with familiar faces. This morning he wakes up in a cold sweat, scream lodged in his throat. He shuffles out of bed.

“Sleep okay?” his mother asks. She can tell there is something haunting him. But she does not know what it is.

“Have you ever seen a human body cut into pieces?” Kenma asks. “The word for it is dismembered, right?” He does not know how else to break it to her and explain how much he is feeling.

She gasps. “Oh, Kenma,” she whispers.

Kenma looks at her with dead eyes. He looks at her like someone who has carried the world’s grief on his shoulders.

She holds him.

Nightmares explain enough, to Kenma. Explain too much. He learns a lot of things in detail.

He wakes up in a shower of hot water, and the steam rises up and swirls into a thick smoke, and he feels his head ache. Kenma feels his stomach churn, and the sickness swirls in his body for the rest of the night.

He doesn’t want to wake up in the morning. But his mother wakes him up, and he has school.

So he gets up, dragging his heavy body forward. The next thing he knows, he feels like he’s sinking.

There’s a period in which everything goes soft and warm and black, like a dream, and then everything flashes white as he hears a voice in his ear. His eyes open, and he sees the blurry image of the floor beneath him.

“Kenma? Kenma?”

“What?” he asks.

“Oh, you’re okay, thank goodness—”

“What?” Kenma asks. “Did I fall asleep by accident?”

“You fainted,” his mother explains, voice steady. “I heard a crash and came running.”

“I didn’t hear a crash,” Kenma says.

His mother presses a hand to his head and something stings.

“Ouch!”

“There’s your crash evidence,” she says. “You okay?”

Kenma shrugs. “I feel dizzy,” he says. “My head aches and I think I might throw up.”

“You’re going to lie down,” his mother orders. “And rest. You’ve been sleeping, right?”

“I have,” Kenma says, as he lies back down. “I don’t know, I just feel like I need fresh air.”

His mother picks him up with a grunt. “You and your requests,” she halfheartedly complains, and she walks outside with him. It’s true that he makes a lot of outlandish requests in a lot of ways, but his life is kind of outlandish.  

The clear air makes him feel a hundred times better, even if the cold makes him shiver. But even the cold is good; it’s crisp and seems to clear out the fuzziness in his brain.

“Better?” his mother asks.

“Can we stay here for a few minutes?” Kenma asks.

“Sure,” his mother says.

Kenma soaks in the sharp feeling, and his head still aches, but he doesn’t feel as sick and grotesque as before. In this moment, he feels small. Like a little child that has gotten weak.

“Okay, that’s good,” Kenma says, and his mother brings him inside. “Get any heavier and I’m not carrying you,” she teases.

“Then I’ll just stay this way forever,” Kenma says, and his mother frowns.

“Nope,” she says, and with utmost conviction. “You’re going to get better.”

Kenma wants to believe her. He really, _really_ wants to believe her, because he got better once. But he’s not better now, and even with the fresh air making him feel better, he’s really not sure.

He lies back down on the bed. Kenma stares at the ceiling, feeling his head pound. He sighs and closes his eyes.

For once, his dreams bring nothing but black. They feel exactly like when he’d fainted, and he feels like he’s sinking into the softest thing ever.

Kenma wakes up feeling clear-headed and confused.

 

* * *

He’s on edge today. It’s probably just paranoia, but he’s on edge anyways.

Good things like this don’t happen. Or they shouldn’t happen.

Correction: they don’t happen without reason.

Kenma bites his lip as he goes through the motions of classes, but nothing strange pops up.

He still stares at people and sees blood spill out of them. He still sees their weeping hearts and bodies, strung up like clothes on a clothesline. He still sees people wilt like flowers and sees one drown in their own tears.

And then he’s walking. He’s walking and he’s walking and he’s on edge.

It’s not paranoia when every day deserves paranoia. And besides, the first time he’d felt paranoid, the demons came back, so he deserves to be afraid.

Kenma swallows as people turn towards him. He wonders if they know how they’ve died in his nightmares. If they’ve felt it somehow. He wonders if the dark of sleep should be that comforting. There is no happiness without sadness, some say. Conversely, there must be no sadness without happiness.

 _Yeah_ , Kenma thinks, suitably depressed _. Maybe it wasn’t a good thing at all._

 

* * *

He’s proven right when he falls asleep.

A girl is mulling through a library. She’s reaching for the tallest shelves. It’s a book about stars.

The books fall and hit her on the head. There’s a terrible cracking sound as she splits in half. Inside her is a smaller girl, who turns towards him. She looks just like a doll. Her skin is made of porcelain and her cheeks are painted rosy red, bright against her glossy white flesh. Slowly, she lifts up her arm. She points straight at him.

The shelf of books comes falling down, and Kenma feels every single one of them bruise his body. As he’s lying there, the girl walks up to him. She lifts the book off from his head. He looks up at her.

She cups his head in her dainty china hands and slowly rips him into two.

He wakes up.

‘I told you so’ doesn’t sound so good when it’s from you to yourself. Kenma would like to be proven wrong for once.

He curls up on the bed.

He wonders how he’s going to get out of this one.

 

* * *

Kenma sleeps again. He sleeps for a very, very long time.

He sees smoke, moving around in thick gray clouds. He breathes it in, feels it as it spreads through his body. It feels like fire, and he is sent into a coughing fit. His soul jumps out of his body. He sees the other body cough, and cough, and cough out blood. In the gray landscape, his blood glows scarlet.

The scene changes.

There is a knife drawn through his back, jagged and rough. Kenma can feel it work through his skin and slice through his bones, and he gasps.

He rips himself out of his body. Kenma stays there, on his back, staring up at the endless expanse, trying to breathe.

When he gets up and looks at his body, he sees his horror- stricken face and his stomach twists.

He walks in a limp, and catches sight of the places the blade had cut. Spiders are crawling out of the bleeding wound, and Kenma closes his eyes and tries not to choke. He feels them on his back, and he shivers. He wants to scream, but when he opens his mouth, he just feels sick and dead.

The scene changes. There’s metal on his arms and it burns his skin off. He watches himself as he falls and vultures pick at his flesh.

 _There are so many ways to die,_ Kenma thinks.

A feeling lodges in his throat, like a stone he can neither swallow nor cough up.

The scenes change, like flipping through pages of a storybook. Sometimes it’s not Kenma. Sometimes it’s other people, and he doesn’t know which one scares him most. The one thing that comforts him is that no one else is with him. He does not think he could stomach having someone else see.

Kenma laughs, stones rolling in his throat and fire burning him from the inside, feeling like death incarnate.

He’s on the—hundredth? thousandth?—scene and it’s driving him insane. He can feel each scene all layered on top of one another and each pain hits him like a sharp spike and drives his focus wild.

Kenma hits his head against the floor, watches as his body tears off his own skin. His skeleton stares back at him. It lifts its long, bony fingers, and slowly stands up. The bones crack and shift and Kenma feels every sound like a hammer hitting his skin.

There’s a ringing sound in his head, and suddenly his head aches. He’s staring up at the skeleton as his vision goes dizzy and somehow there’s fear building up on him. He’s trying to scramble away, but his wrists are limp and useless. The skeleton reaches towards him, and it pieces back its body together, growing taller, into a silhouette with amber eyes that seem to stab swords through him. He tries to run and finds that he’s been nailed down. Kenma freezes.

An impact, Kenma knows. This is an explosion. He feels his fears like fire, all-consuming, but there’s a dull thud in his chest that makes him numb.

A long, bony finger breaks out from the silhouette. It is covered in amber. It reaches towards him, and Kenma, having forgotten how to breathe or think, does not look away.

 _Help me,_ he thinks. _Please, help me._

There’s a white hot pain that spikes in his arms, and it envelops him like a tornado of fire. Kenma can feel everything and nothing at all. As he stares at the silhouette, his vision seems to cloud.

The eyes bulge out of the silhouette, and then a high, shrieking sound bounces around Kenma’s head. It grows louder and louder and LOUDER AND—

AND THEN EVERYTHING GOES DARK.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait!! uhh i guess. i guess this is a cliffhanger lol,, i'll try to upload ch 9 next week? also unrelated but with these chapter titles i have officially come the closest i will ever to writing a songfic
> 
> find me @sonnets-of-beauty, im not a very active poster but ill answer any asks or whatever!


	8. oh be near me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now there’s something in his skin that just seems to warm, and Kenma curls in on himself. There’s something that feels _right_ curled up with him and before he knows it, his eyes are fluttering shut. The relief is almost instant. He can still feel the sting underneath his eyelids, but he’s already half in a trance.
> 
> He’s on the verge of something. He’s going to find it out.
> 
> But right now, all Kenma can think about is warmth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who forgot to update and literally left this 75% edited sitting in their docs!!!!
> 
> this fool!!!!

It is quiet.

It is dark.

Kenma realizes that he has his eyes shut. The thing with having closed eyes is that it is impossible to know what is in front of you. It’s this lack of control that terrifies him but reassures him at the same time. When you close your eyes, the world passes around you and forgets who you are. When you close your eyes, you fall into a void, and then, for just a moment, you feel like you don’t exist.

But his heart is still thudding and he’s not sure where he is. He’s not sure if he wants to be here. He’s not sure if this is the time to ignore everything.

He opens his eyes.

It is dark.                                              

But maybe dark is the wrong word. He can see, because the air around him seems to glow with a soft light.

Kenma holds up his hands. They are shaking.

But he is fine.

He brushes his hair out of his face and looks again.

 _It’s not… dark, not exactly_ , he thinks. _It’s just black._

He holds out his arms, hesitantly. This body feels almost unreal.

Kenma gets up onto his knees. He slowly inches forward, hand outstretched.

His fingers brush against something, and he jerks back. With caution, he tries again, and feels something soft brush up against his hand.

He runs his fingers along the surface. Feathers, he realizes. Soft and warm and black. Like dreams.

The wings unfurl around him, and Kenma sees a boy hovering above him. The wings are too big and wide for his body, and soon they shrink into something that fits his size. The boy is smaller than his normal silhouette, but his eyes are gold and Kenma recognizes him immediately.

“You’re okay now,” the dream demon says, like he himself can’t believe it. “You’re okay now.

Kenma nods. He is too relieved to be angry. He just thinks of how glad he is that someone else could help him. He wants the dream demon to keep talking. His voice is soft on the ears.

“Go,” the dream demon says. “Close your eyes and sleep. You’ll have peaceful dreams now. I won’t fail you again, okay?”

Kenma is barely looking at him. His eyes are already fluttering shut.

The dream demon did not lie. Kenma is not surprised. The dream demon may seem conniving, but he doesn’t look like he enjoys lying, or being wrong.

His dreams are peaceful. Kenma sits in a field of anemones and wonders what meaning is the right one.

Has he been forsaken? Or has he just been waiting?

He holds a red carnation in his hand, and it drips with ink, like a quill. The field glows golden.

Kenma sleeps. Kenma dreams, and it feels like coming home.

 

* * *

He wakes to bright sunlight. His mother is standing over him. “You’re certainly sleeping late,” she says.

“I…I think they’re gone,” he says.

“Finally?” she asks.

Kenma looks at her. He sees the anxiety radiating from her.

He feels the energy coursing through his blood. Weirdly enough, he almost feels magical.

Kenma sits up. He nods. “Yeah,” he says.

And he believes it.

Her face breaks out into the biggest smile, and she envelops him into a hug. “You finally fought them off,” she says, with a smile.

Kenma shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says, hesitant to declare his newfound interest in the dream demon, “but it happened.”

He… wants to talk to him. To talk to him would be to break a promise, but for some reason, he feels that being near him is electrifying, in a pleasant way that warms his entire being.

His mother smiles. “That’s just fine,” she declares. She pauses. “Hey, I can make you an apple pie, since I couldn’t for your birthday,” she says. “Sound good?”

“Sounds perfect,” Kenma says, and he jumps out of bed. Without even hesitating, he grabs two journals, the advanced level books, and after a little bit of thought, _On Magic_ . He takes a few steps, and then turns around and snatches _An Overview of Magic History_ , just for good measure.

“Can I go grab Kageyama?” he asks.

His mother nods. Kenma runs over to the crystal that’s set up by the door and taps it twice.

His fingers are itching, so he grabs a quill and ink and starts scribbling down symbols while his mother prepares everything. _Demon_ , he writes out carefully, adding a swirl onto the top. _Light. Sleep. Wings_. He draws arrows for transportation, and scrawls a simple protection circle outside the inner one.

Kenma flips to the next page. He stars with the symbol for fire, and then slashes the circle in half with a jagged line and writes earth. He scrawls as many directions as possible before moving onto the next page.

This one’s a little harder. Kenma follows the lines the way he knows, and draws an arrow in the middle. _Fire_ , he writes first, and then smaller, _light_ . He goes in and writes _spirits_ , _strength_ , and _will_ into the inner circle. On the outside, he writes the signs for _metal_ , over and over again until they encase the circle.

He writes another one in the same likeness, but he draws a potion bottle, and writes in the ingredients— _glass, honeysuckle, fire_ —and scrawls _cast in green_ at the top.

Kenma switches to a new page. He writes colors in the circle. He adds _blue_ and _white_ and _green_ and he adds the words _secret_ and _trick_ into one complex symbol that seems to shift as he tries to look at it. Satisfied, he adds the symbols for _speed_ , _shift_ , and _double_ . Blur, he thinks. He scrawls a note to himself at the top _. Change casting circle._

Symbols have power in magic. Meanings. Kenma figures that if they use this one enough, there will be a meaning. There’s accepted words, obviously, but then there’s a personal style that everyone carries. Words like _speed_ can mean different things to anybody. And that’s what makes Kageyama so special. He has one of the fastest minds and hands Kenma knows, and the anticipation makes him feel brighter than before.

Anemones, he thinks. That’s what anemones are. _Anticipation_ . He sketches out the symbols for _wait_ and _energy_ in the corner of a page, just to see them with his own eyes.

He takes a deep breath, and grabs the advanced level pile. Quickly, he starts flipping through the table of contents. What it gives him are incredibly powerful spells, and offensive tactics that might be useful if he were Kageyama, but nothing Kenma really needs to write spells. And even if he does need those books, he needs this book more than anything.

Kenma traces his finger over the golden script of _On Magic_ , and he plops the book on his lap. With single-minded determination, he skips past the opening quote and the table of contents. He’s hit by a slew of words but the heading of the chapter makes him feel at ease. _Using the Water Element_.

From what he gathers as he reads the first few paragraphs, _On Magic_ is mostly based on theoretical magic, as well as spell writing. It seeks to expand the boundaries of magic, rather than teaching things already established. It’s so perfect that Kenma wonders why he hadn’t started it sooner.

But he knows why. Starting a book like this means actual commitment. Actual work. Belief that this is something worth looking into so much that it can become your entire life if needed. This isn’t something Kageyama will ever work on.

But it’s something Kenma will.

After he carefully reads and rereads the first few pages, he can smell the apple pie. His hands are ink-stained by the amount of notes he’s been taking. With his clean hand, Kenma flips open to a section of _An Overview of Magic History_. The section covers the history of water magic, and as Kenma switches back and forth between the textbooks, he sees where the information lines up.

At this point, he looks up to see his mother taking the pie out of the oven.

“It still has to cool,” his mother shouts, like she knows he’s thinking about just eating it now.

He jumps off the stool he’s been sitting on when he hears a knock on the door.

Kageyama’s standing there, face flushed. “You never call this early,” he says. “Or unprompted.”

Kenma grins. “I think I found a shortcut.”

“For what?” Kageyama asks. “Magic?” He frowns. “I can do most of the fine-tuning, you know—”

Kenma shakes his head. “I found something better. I’ll tell you when we get to Ayako’s house, but do you want some apple pie?”

Kageyama smiles. “That would be nice,” he says.

“First off,” Kenma says, “You have to write down the spells for cleaning your brush. And, I don’t know, maybe to summon your paint?”

“Storing things in pocket spaces is an advanced level spell,” Kageyama says. “I can’t manage those yet.”

Kenma sighs. “I just mean, like, to levitate them around you. The circle for that could be on your shoes.”

“Or on my heel,” Kageyama says. “I could lose my shoes.”

“You’re okay with that?” Kenma asks. “You might have to ink it permanently.”

Kageyama shrugs. “I just have to write a levitation spell. I can change it into whatever it needs to be if I try hard enough. And anyways, I can just repaint it every week if I really don’t want to do something permanent.”

“How many seconds will it take for you to get out your paints like that?” Kenma asks.

“Instantly,” Kageyama says with confidence. He tilts his head. “Why do you care so much about my paints?” he asks.

“You’ll see,” Kenma says. He’s nodding now, smile growing on his face. “You’ll like it. It’s basically made for you, after all.”

Kagayama’s eyes light up.

Kenma goes to wash his hands, and Kageyama follows. The ink bleeds out into the water and makes it two shades darker. Kenma watches it mix, and wonders if there’s any way he can use that feeling.

He stares at the water for too long. He remembers what it’s like to drown.

Kenma steps back and tries to breathe.

Kageyama looks at him, confused. “You okay?”

Kenma nods, but suddenly he’s not as excited. He takes a minute and walks outside. Kenma finds the red carnations, because they’re always really pretty, and sits beside them.

“I hope I feel okay soon,” he says. “I hope I forget, but I also don’t want to, because I know so many things.” He slouches. “My mother told me that pain is easily forgotten,” Kenma tells the sky, tells the flowers who will listen. “I wish I felt the same.”

He traces circles on the back of his hand, and he thinks. “Things are getting better,” he whispers. “I’m going to be happy.” It’s a hollow wish, but saying it out loud makes Kenma feel less dull.

“I’m going to be happy,” he says, again. He smells the apple pie even from outside the house. Maybe being happy is a lie.

But Kenma will believe in it.

 

* * *

At Kenma’s request, they’ve moved to a wide, empty room that’s plated with metal. Apparently Ayako uses it for casting, and the last thing Kenma wants is for Kageyama to damage his paintings.

“So,” Kenma says, “You know how it takes you minutes or hours to cast spells, unless you’re Ukai and you have dragon crystals?”

“I’m going to have dragon crystals,” Kageyama says, confident. “It won’t take any time.”

“Idiot,” Kenma chides. “Just follow me here, okay?” He takes in a deep breath, clutching his journal to his chest. “How much do you know about magic history?”

“I know about demon hunters,” Kageyama says. “I know all about them. Not as many from foreign countries, but—”

Kenma sighs. “Other than that.”

“Nothing,” Kageyama declares, weirdly proud.

“So, I’ve been reading about magic history, and around this area, it’s primarily used for demon hunting, or other offensive means,” Kenma says.

Kageyama furrows his brows. “Simplify that?”

“It’s mostly used for demon hunting and, and attackative stuff.” His voice is unsure at the last part as he tries to translate what he’s been quoting into actual explanation.

Kageyama nods. “Yeah. Attackative.”

“I don’t think that’s a word,” Kenma says, “but sure.”

“ _You_ made it up,” Kageyama points out.

Kenma scowls. “Anyways, my point is that. Not all magic has to be about sheer power, once you have a lot of it. They can be--like what Ayako does. Distractions. And I have something I’m working on related to that, but it’s not done.” He claps his hands to signal that he’s starting a new line of though. “The thing I  wanted to talk about today was a different type of casting. When Ukai does his spells, he’s known for having incredibly big spells. Simple spells, I guess. Anything confusing would take too long to cast.”

“You could memorize everything,” Kageyama offers.

“What if you don’t have the right spell for a situation?” Kenma challenges. He clears his throat. “So, uh, Ukai tends to do these really big spells that get rid of a monster quick, because versatile things don’t hold up well. And Ayako keeps runes on her sword that she uses.”

“Ayako’s not from here, though.”

“Just shut up and listen, okay?” Kenma racks his brain for his train of thought. “Anyways, Ayako trains as a demon hunter, so she uses primarily offensive spells, along with some flashy maneuvers to mislead people. _But_ she used that butterfly thing once.”

“She calls the butterfly Alex,” Kageyama says. “It’s one of the things she uses for her distractions.”

Kenma blinks, processing the information. “Yeah, I thought it was something like that,” he says. “It made me think. About drawings, right? Remember when I told you to make that flower?”

“The blue one,” Kageyama supplies unhelpfully.

“Blue hyacinth,” Kenma corrects on instinct. “It looked off to me, which is maybe because you’ve never seen it in real life before. But, uh, I have some experiments to make, so help me?”

Kageyama nods. “I’m so glad you stopped talking,” he says bluntly. “I was about to sleep.”

“It was important,” Kenma counters. “You’ll be happy if this works.”

Kageyama frowns. “I sure hope it does,” he says.

Kenma pauses before he hands the page with the potion bottle to Kageyama. “What’s it like when you cast a spell you don’t know?” he asks.

Kageyama shrugs. “The words, the feelings, they all rise up from the circle into my brain. It’s a mess, but sometimes you get the answer, and sometimes, when you think of a different answer, the circle doesn’t like it, because it was written by someone else. He takes out his paint brush and dips in in green paint. “But since the circles are drawn by me, it always listens.” He hands the page back to Kenma. “Hold it up for me to see?” he asks. Kenma steps back and holds it up gingerly, making sure not to obscure Kageyama’s view.

Kageyama crouches down, and faster than Kenma can see, draws a swooping circle, quickly sketching the image and symbols out as he glances at the page Kenma is holding up for him. As soon as he finishes it, it glows a brilliant white, and Kenma sees a glass bottle with bright green liquid in the center. He picks it up, uncorks the bottle, and pours a few drops on the circle. Where the drops hit, the circle becomes lighter, just like the potion is intended to do. Technically, it’s supposed to make it spotless, but Kenma can live with that.

He hums. Kenma flips open a page and draws a basic circle for a stone flower. He sketches some jasmine in the middle, and writes _sweet_ and _aroma_ in the inner circle.

“Color?” Kageyama asks, when Kenma holds it up.

“White.”

Kageyama fishes out his white paint, which is smudged with a rainbow of colors on the container. He scribbles a small circle on the floor, and the circle for the potion, as well as the paint on his paintbrush, disappears. Kenma notices that even the paint on Kageyama’s fingers have disappeared, and so have the smears of color on the white paint.

Kageyama looks up to him and grins. “Area casting,” he says. “Ayako’s been teaching me how to moderate. I’m a lot better at it than she is, because she does it with the circle, and I can just do it by thinking really hard.”

“Are you as strong as Ayako, though?” Kenma asks.

Kageyama shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says. “But someday I’ll be stronger.”

Kenma laughs. “Good luck,” he says, and waits as Kenma draws the circle. He takes longer on the picture, analyzing Kenma’s lines with a careful eye, and suddenly he feels self-conscious, standing up and holding the picture.

Kenma wonders that if someone far off in a distant land has already learned this. But he swallows that fear down. Magic is a relatively new thing. After the first wave of blessed children, it’s become a sort of accepted thing, but there’s still stuff to be figured out.

“Our village is pretty large, huh,” Kenma says.

Kageyama fixes him with an unimpressed look. “Why do you think Ukai lives here?”

Kenma shrugs. “I don’t go to the village a lot.”

Kageyama snorts. “You’ve only seen the village part,” he says. “You haven’t seen any of the magical school, or the entire port, have you?”

Kenma shakes his head. “I… stopped visiting places once I learned people were afraid of me?”

Kageyama scoffs. “That shouldn’t stop you from anything,” he says. “People avoid me all the time.” He finishes the circle, and it flashes before Kenma sees a delicate stone flower appear out of thin air.

“Do circles give off light all the time?” he asks.

Kageyama shrugs. “Magician’s like to add something ‘extra special’,” he explains.

“More like extra dumb,” Kenma retorts. “It takes way too much time.”

“Two seconds?”

“It makes a difference,” Kenma says. He picks up the flowers and smells it. There’s a mildly sweet fragrance, like chocolate, but nothing reminiscent of jasmine.

He folds up the two circles and tucks them back in the journal, before he sits down on the ground, cross-legged, and motions for Kageyama to do the same.

“So,” Kenma says, “When you draw things, they look real, even though they’re a bunch of lines.”

“If you want to put it that way,” Kageyama mutters. “Is this explanation going to be long?” he asks. “It better not be.”

“Depends on how many times I have to repeat it for you,” Kenma says. “I was thinking of Ayako’s butterfly coming to life, and I was wondering what would happen if you just drew the thing you wanted to make. So instead of it looking like a painting, when you cast it, it actually becomes real.”

Kageyama nods. “And?”

“With the jasmine, it looks right, but since you don’t know what a jasmine is, it felt off. Because I gave you the ingredients for the potion, you were able to create it just fine, but the mixture was off and it made the effect weaker. That’s easily fixed, though.”

“And by drawing, I can shorten casting time, right?”

“Basically,” Kenma confirms. Then he grins. “You’re going to like the next circle, I promise.”

And he’s usually not one for dramatics, but he presents the magic circle with a flourish. When he slides it over to Kageyama, he sees his eyes light up in recognition.

“Fire,” he murmurs, reading the script, “and a bow and arrow.” He raises an eyebrow. “Metal? I know what an arrow’s made of.”

“Cover it in metal,” Kenma explains. “Do you know how to use a bow?”

“A little bit,” Kageyama says. “I could get better at it. I might enchant one to shoot these with magic, later.”

“You know what an arrow looks like,” Kenma says. “You know what fire looks like.” He tilts his head. “Do you think you can memorize it?”

“Already done,” Kageyama says. “I’m not going to forget a circle like that.”

Kenma tucks the paper back in the journal. “Use any color you want,” he says, “but I think using colors helps the spell along. Do you want me to count the seconds it takes?”

Kageyama nods, staring at the floor like he’s going to fight with it.

“First, draw a levitation circle for your paints,” Kenma says. “I’ll count you down, and you activate that, and start painting, okay?”

Kageyama nods. He paints a circle to the side of him.

“Three…two…one…go!”

Kageyama jabs the paintbrush at the levitation circle, and then he’s off, painting the circles in black and switching to a mix of red and orange for the fire. He paints another circle at the side of him and uses it to switch effortlessly between paints. A few seconds before Kenma hits one minute, Kageyama’s paints clatter to the floor, and he has an arrow drawn at the metal wall. He shoots it, and a blazing arrow hits the wall, leaving a scorch mark as it drops to the floor. The inside is just a thin metal spike, now that the flames are gone. Kageyama lets loose another three at the wall, and after that’s done, he dispels the bow and pumps a fist into the air.

“Yes!” he shouts, turning towards Kenma. “That was so cool!” Kageyama cries, devolving into a series of whoops and laughter.

“If you get used to it, and have more shortcuts for your paints, it’ll be even faster,” Kenma says, and Kageyama grins.

Kageyama’s staring at Kenma in euphoria for a very long time, half-dancing across the room, but eventually, he drops to the floor unceremoniously. “That’s a lot of magic,” he says. His breathing is a little bit labored. “No more spells for today, I think? I’m just going to treasure this moment.” He pauses, and turns his head towards Kenma, careful not to look away.

“I’m nowhere near as creative as you are,” he says. “I’m really glad you’re my friend. It…helps.”

 _It helps me too,_ Kenma thinks, and he smiles. “I guess I got rid of that block,” he says, quietly.

“This is going to change the world,” he says.

At that, Kenma shrugs. “It’s probably already a thing in another country,” he says. “And it’s really only specific to you.”

“Whatever,” Kageyama says. “It’s life-changing.” He smiles. “Aren’t I as important as the world? And you’re more important than the world.”

Kenma doesn’t know how to feel about that. He’s felt like nobody for a long while, and making breakthroughs and being called life-changing doesn’t really make you feel like a nobody anymore.

“Not many people in the world to care for,” he says. “You, mom, Ayako. That’s the important world to me.”

He stares at the scorch marks on the wall.

 _Whatever_ , he decides. He’ll be hopeful. _Tentatively_ hopeful. And if it all comes crashing down, at least he’ll have been happy for a little while.

 

* * *

He’s dreaming, just like before, but there’s something insistent tugging at the back of his mind.

Kenma’s clutching his sketchbook. He’s swirling a sign and the air is moving in response, and by all accounts, it should be normal, but it doesn’t feel right.

He taps his quill against the spell for illusion, and it does an okay job, but it doesn’t feel lifelike enough. Whenever Kenma’s trying to give ideas to magic, like strength, it always falls flat unless there’s something it can translate physically into.

But there are things he wants to use. He wants to know if there’s just a way to induce an emotion, or a way to represent something that doesn’t revolve around just physical manifestations of magical energy.

Because Kenma can feel it, here, like a buzz in the air. You have to have something before you create something, and the magical energy is that something.

He wonders, then, if magical energy is a power you can use directly. If it can be translated into things like purity. Maybe for magic users, they breathe the feeling and never question, but Kenma can feel the raw energy that sets his nerves on edge. Maybe it’s this that makes the world have an abundance of demons. Or it could be the lack of people willing to hunt demons.

Anyways, Kenma figures this will help.

He flips to a blank sheet of paper, again, and stares at it for a long while, but his mind is just going nowhere. Part of it might be the complete lack of direction. The other might be that insistent pulling.

As if it can sense Kenma’s irritation, the tugging at his brain stops. Kenma sighs and buries his hands in his head. His brain still isn’t working, so he figures he might as well read.

He’s meaning to flip to the next section, but he ends up opening the book backwards, there’s one section that catches his eye.

Counter-magic.

Kenma flips to the table of contents. Sure enough, it’s not listed, because it’s been lodged into the _Other_ category at the very end of the book.

It’s a term he’s unfamiliar with, though Kenma can guess at its purpose. It’s most likely a term for deflection spells or perhaps the cancellation of a spell through the usage of a shield or some other spell. In essence, defensive magic.

He’s a little bit right.

But he’s also very, very wrong.

What he finds is so much more than he would have ever expected. There’s entire pages of magical knowledge, and how you can effectively just stop a spell or, even better rewrite it.

The strange thing is that there’s no magical element. Nothing about channeling. Just—nothing. Kenma’s eyes track over the page. He’s not really absorbing what he’s reading. He’s just not going to believe it.

It’s too dangerous to meddle with, he thinks. A kind of thing so untested. He frowns at the book. Maybe having such a strange book is making his head weird. He definitely _feels_ funny.

 _Hey. Hey. Hey._ The tugging at his brain is back again, and Kenma’s temper flares.

 _Take notes_? The voice in his head suggests, and Kenma’s eyes shoot up to glare at the dream demon. He resolutely does not think anything back, and instead just tries to project an angry feeling around him.

Sure enough, the dream demon leaves. But softly. He does it softly, so Kenma does not miss it when he leaves.

Kenma’s eyes seem to burn, but he scrawls a few notes onto the page. They’re half-hearted, though.

He looks up at the blurry back of the dream demon. Kenma yawns. He absentmindedly hums a tune he knows in the air.

The dream demon seems to shift.

There’s this tiredness sweeping through him that Kenma can’t explain. Maybe he’s just exhausted, after everything that’s happened recently.

And then there’s—and then there’s something.

He feels different again, like he’s been completed. He feels like he’s been craving something for weeks and it’s finally back—but he doesn’t know what it is. There’s a hole that’s filled but he doesn’t even know what the hole was.

Kenma tries to read a few words, but gives up.

And now there’s something in his skin that just seems to warm, and Kenma curls in on himself. There’s something that feels _right_ curled up with him and before he knows it, his eyes are fluttering shut. The relief is almost instant. He can still feel the sting underneath his eyelids, but he’s already half in a trance.

He’s on the verge of something. He’s going to find it out.

But right now, all Kenma can think about is warmth. What it feels like to be cared for, every once in a while. All he can think about is that things almost feel right, but not quite.

As he drifts into sleep, he almost feels like he’s getting closer to the answer.

 

* * *

Illusion magic does not come easily to Kageyama. He struggles at it, so used to putting his thoughts and heart out on display.

It’s a thing Kenma often thinks about. There are parts of magic he wants to study, but he always feels like they are being made for a different person. Kageyama is a genius, so he’s proficient in just about anything, but even geniuses would struggle with a magic that Kenma is engineering through only hypotheticals. Nothing from Ayako’s country suggests anything close to illusion magic, or not anything she knows of, at the least.

But it’s wrong to say that Kageyama cannot lie. Kageyama knows how to lie about a lot of things. But he’s still an open book. He’s an angry, open book that opens too easily once you give it a little nudge.

Kenma’s hair grows longer. He doesn’t like combing it out when it’s so long, so his mother cuts it so it reaches his mid-back. Kenma keeps it like that, and she cuts it like that. Truthfully, he’d like it to be shorter, but he feels like it would be weird to have long hair in the front and not in the back. Besides, his mother likes to braid it.

Kenma has amassed a pile of writing by his bedside. His mother stares at him like she doesn’t know what to do with him, sometimes.

They both hide secrets.

“Do you like Ayako?” she asks, every once in a while, and everytime Kenma says yes she’ll stare off into space and then walk away, murmuring to herself.

Illusion magic works best in the dreams. Maybe that’s because dreams _are_ illusions. Maybe that’s why they always make him feel so strange.

He finds himself staring at the dream demon with an ache in his chest. He wants, he wants, he _wants_ \--

What? To talk to him?

Kenma always bites his lip. He cannot and should not say anything. Not to the dream demon.

But the ache within him persists.

He misses him, weirdly enough. He misses the dream demon. He missed him before when he was gone and when Kenma was in danger, but now he just misses him even when he’s there.

He’s just a little bit out of reach physically. Mentally, he feels miles away.

Every once in a while, Kenma will find himself blinking, and then tearing up. It’s random and scattered and it doesn’t make sense, but it happens.

If Kageyama’s next to him, he’ll look at him like someone who just turned eleven and believes they know everything. And he’ll say, “you’re thinking about that person again,” because Kenma hasn’t told anyone about the dream demon. Still, Kageyama knows there’s a person, because they’re friends and it’s hard to hide things. And Kenma will sniff, tell Kageyama to shut up, and the years will pass.

The ache never does heal.

Kageyama’s scowls grow darker by the day. He vents in sharp tones about people who just cannot understand, and Kenma agrees, telling him about the last encounter he had when stepping outside. It’s never a fun story. They both will glare at the ground until one of them breaks. And then Kageyama’s shoulders, so tightly drawn, will ease, and he will bury his face in his hands.

“I want to leave this place,” Kageyama says, often, like it will get him out of his state. The passage of time drags on slowly, but suddenly it leaves him tripping once he realizes how little in the way of magic he has accomplished. His illusion magic is still imperfect, but he’s moved up many grades.

Kenma turns fourteen and stares at the mural Kageyama had painted for him. _I just want to feel whole again_ , he thinks.

“I feel like I’m holding myself back,” Kageyama confess, when Kenma turns fourteen. “I feel like you are, too, because of me. You’re so good at what you do, and I know I can be better, but I’m not being quick enough—”

Kenma stops him there. “You’re quicker than most,” he reminds Kageyama. “And art comes with practice. That takes time.”

Kageyama frowns. “I need to be the quickest, though,” and Kenma understands.

Kageyama is wrong, though. Kenma does not wonder if he’s holding himself back, because he is not holding himself back. He doesn’t really want to share his achievements with the world. He keeps reading. He tackles the advanced books with dedication paralleled only by Kageyama. Somehow, being next someone with that level of effort makes him want to keep up, if only a little. He tackles _On Magic_ and manages to work his way through over half the book. But the counter-magic section remains untouched, and Kenma knows that _Forbidden Arts: Dark Magic_ remains untouched by Kageyama.

Sometimes you have know what you fear, but not if it comes at a cost. For Kenma it is hope. For Kageyama it is a hero’s identity.

Perhaps they’re holding back. Perhaps they aren’t breaking out of the norm. Perhaps all this waiting is a bad thing.

But both of them know exactly what it feels like to have everything broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr is hella inactive but i will so responds to any asks/messages!! its sonnets-of-beauty and i rly should change that url
> 
> currently is is 1am and i just had to get this out before i felt any guiltier


	9. amethyst and flowers on the table

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wonders if the people would treat him any different if the dream demon were well and truly gone, and if he did not have nightmares. But it feels like they have a curse written in their blood, because the dream demon, no matter how much he fades away, cannot escape him. Kenma has seen his wings, and he knows the dream demon can fly anywhere, that he has the strength to overcome thousands of nightmares. But he does not leave.
> 
> Then again, nightmares are only scary when they are your own.
> 
> Kenma wonders if the dream demon has any nightmares, and then he wonders why he thinks so much about him.
> 
> That has an easy answer. Just like the dream demon, Kenma’s curse is that he does not know how to stay away from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this ch is 11.5k and im dying bc i rly didnt expect it to be that long. literally it was originally less than half of what it is now
> 
> also!! updated the summary

Once a year, the dream demon will disappear. A month later, he will return.

Kenma sleeps peacefully, by all accounts. Nothing chases after him in the time that the dream demon leaves. But he feels cold all night. He rolls into his blankets and shuts his eyes and wills himself to sleep. And when he wakes up, it’s never the same.

But the dream demon keeps his promises. He is not a liar. He always returns on Kenma’s birthday.

The dream demon does not wish him happy birthday. But maybe the color of his dreams is a little bit warmer.

It is not enough. Kenma is never able to catch his smile when he returns.

Kenma’s birthdays pass by like the way you see a shooting star. You make a wish. It’s gone, and you wonder about it for a month, safely tucked in the back of your mind. And then it’s gone. And then you forget about it, and it’s like the wish was never there at all. Not that Kenma would wish for anything. Wishing is dangerous and filled with deception. But he thinks about the color of his dreams for a month before the thought fades away.

He doesn’t care for his aging. He’s only aware that soon enough his explorations of magic will cease. He’s only aware that one day there will be a point where his physical limitations will stop him.

As the days, pass the dream demon fades away. He leaves only the mist and the vague projection of his presence. Kenma misses the dream demon the way he misses time. The space between them seems to grow too far much too fast. And he hates that. He always feels restless, nowadays.

He doesn’t know why the presence of the dream demon has become so important to him. Maybe it’s because as selfish as it is, he craves the feeling of that magic. He has an uncanny ability to feel it around him. He doesn’t voice it around Kageyama because the thought scares him. What kind of person can’t do magic but can sense it?

Not someone normal. He doesn’t need to stand out in his life; he just needs to belong in a place. But Kenma knows that he’ll only belong in a place in which his oddities are ignored. So he needs to be special.

It is a tricky conundrum.

On his fourteenth birthday, he stares at the mirror until it hits midnight. _Happy birthday_ , he murmurs to himself, just a little too late, and falls asleep.

The dream demon does nothing, the day after. Somehow, it hurts.

 _It’s fine like this_ , Kenma thinks.

 _It’s fine like this_ , he thinks again, in the process of reminding himself as he stares at the mirror in his mother’s bedroom. It’s a routine that seems to pain him. But he doesn’t know how to get rid of it.

He stares at himself for a little longer. He pretends that things will be different. Then he sighs, pulls his hair into a ponytail, and grabs his book.

He’s been studying magic with Ayako, for a while. She’s been digging up books, recently. And she delights in the way Kageyama has taken to illusion magic, even if he’s still struggling with it. Maybe he is struggling with it because Kenma is an awful teacher.

“I just never thought I’d see it here,” Ayako murmurs, when she sees what they’ve been working on. He had assumed she didn’t know any illusion magic, because Kageyama didn’t, but Ayako is a woman of many secrets. “The style is different, but it’s the same concept. I can’t decide which style is better. Really, I can’t.”

She looks at the circles and smiles. “Your handwriting is so pretty,” she tells him. “It reminds me of Chinami’s.”

She smiles at him then, but Kenma just shrugs. His handwriting isn’t that wonderful. And in regards to illusion magic, he’s not the original. He based it off something Ayako already had in her repertoire. So there’s nothing to really be proud of.

He’s thinking about Ayako’s small, unsuccessful words of encouragement when Kageyama slumps beside him, magically exhausted for the day.

“I know there’s someone out there,” Kageyama says, “who can do this better than me.”

“Yeah,” Kenma says, “but you’re the only one I have.”  
The resulting smile he gets from Kageyama is bitter. “What if I’m wasting your time?” he asks.

“The better question is whether I’m wasting yours,” Kenma says, and Kageyama doesn’t argue with him.

“Do you…” they begin simultaneously, and then halt, turning towards each other.

“You go first,” Kageyama says, “you’re older.”

“Do you want to stop this?” Kenma says. “For a little bit. There are other things you need to practice if you want to be the best demon hunter the world’s ever seen.”

“A little break sounds nice,” Kageyama says.

So they take a break from it. And Kenma shelves a book full of spells and ideas, and he works on his flowers, and with Kageyama, he finds different pursuits, and little tricks. It is worth it for the shine in Kageyama’s eyes when he summons a power wave of water, and worth it when Ayako drags him away for a weeklong trip, and when he comes back, his eyes are shining and there is magic glowing all around him.

“You look happy,” he says then.

And Kageyama asks, “How did you know?”  
“It’s obvious,” he says, and keeps it secret that he can see much more than Kageyama’s smile.

He dreams nothing that night and wakes up cold again. And he catches sight of himself in the mirror and tastes the bitter tang of melancholy on his tongue. And he accepts life as it is.  

He doesn’t want things to change, after all.

 

* * *

 

It is the day before his birthday, and Kenma doesn’t really care about it. Life goes on, and he’s just going to keep moving. He woke up cold today, but tomorrow, maybe the air will feel just a little bit warmer. Maybe he’ll feel a little bit better.

He laughs when he thinks about how miserably his moping compares to when he was six. When he was six he had problems that arguably hurt so much more than this. Now his problems hurt, just—different. An awkward and clumsy hurt that leaves invisible wounds.

Maybe there were—are—invisible wounds from when he was six. But they’re so much harder to feel after knowing how all the physical pain felt.

Today he will go around for deliveries and try not to think about life until tomorrow. His problems will sweep themselves away for a few years still.

The dream of yesterday followed the dream demon’s constant pattern of misty gray to dusky purple to black softness. Nothing compares to the feel of the wings from years ago, though. And so it sets Kenma on edge and at ease at the same time.

He walks to the side room where the flower shop is, and picks up the bouquet he’s supposed to deliver.

Almost immediately, there’s hurried knocking on the door. He places the bouquet back to where it was, and moves to the door.

Kenma swings it open, sighing.

Kageyama’s face is red. Maybe it’s just from running all the way up here, but then Kageyama releases a string of garbled noises and Kenma thinks he’s just extremely flustered.

“Need anything?” he asks, raising an eyebrow as he lets Kageyama inside.

Kageyama makes a frustrated noise. “You—not at front door—”

“Well, I’m here,” Kenma responds. “We’ve solved that mystery awfully quick.”

It’s early in the morning. He saw Kageyama just yesterday morning. “Something happen like five minutes ago before you just ran here?”

“I—” Kageyama begins, and then takes in a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Technically, yesterday.”

“How did you not tell me yesterday, then?”

“Too mad,” Kageyama gasps, and then sits down on the floor, catching his breath.

Maybe it’s a mix of both. Maybe Kageyama is incredibly embarrassed and also incredibly stupid for running all the way over here.

“And you’re _still_ mad?” he asks. Not that Kageyama looks mad. He looks like someone just publicly humiliated him.

Kageyama grumbles, “It was a nightmare of an encounter, okay. Just listen to me.”

“Oh, I’m listening,” Kenma says. He starts on a new bouquet. “Look at that big word there, encounter. Tell me all about it.”

“I ran into this kid today, and he—” Kageyama slumps against the wall.

“I thought you ran into him yesterday?”

“Today. _Again_ ,” Kageyama answers, seemingly exasperated from the events of the morning. He continues, “He looks like a little bit younger than me, and he had so much magic. _So_ much magic. Like, I’ve never seen anything like it.” He’s staring out into space with a look of bewilderment and wonder.

“You can swoon later. Chop, chop. Continue on.”

“I’m not swooning,” Kageyama argues, but he does blink a few times and shake himself out of his stupor. _It must have been a lot of raw magic_ , Kenma thinks. _Kageyama doesn’t even get that way around Ayako, or Ukai._

Then again, Ayako’s always good at hiding how strong she is. But the fact that he looks _more_ excited than when he met Ukai—even if the excitement is only in his eyes—is a huge deal.

“So, I tried to talk to him—”

Kenma turns around so fast it gives him whiplash. “You grabbed a total stranger?” he almost yells. _He needs to learn how to not grab people_ , Kenma thinks. _Do I have to be the one to teach him social interaction? Because that’s just cruel._ “With a _giant_ amount of magic?”

Kageyama flushes. “I wasn’t thinking!”

“Clearly not!”

Kenma turns back to his bouquet. There are flowers his mother has plucked from the garden and put here, and he picks out of these, humming and waiting for Kageyama to continue. He stares at the yellow poppies for a long time before picking them out.

Finally, Kageyama continues. “I asked him about his magic and he just looked at me and he was super confused and he was like ‘I’ve never used magic’.” He’s practically seething now, voice going high and whiny as he imitates the stranger. “And _then_ he asked me if he could learn it! No one had ever told him before because apparently when he tried to hold a wand it exploded! _One_ wand! The place he’s from doesn’t even have a _magic school_!”

“Did you get angry?” Kenma asks. “Over something he literally can’t control? The kid is _younger_ than you, right?”

He doesn’t look behind himself, but he can feel Kageyama deflate. “A little bit. He just… has a lot of potential.”

“A little bit,” Kenma echoes, disbelieving. “And today?”

“Today?” Kageyama asked.

“Yeah, today. What happened today?” he asks.

“I—I saw him again,” Kageyama says.

“And?” Kenma prods.

“And…” Kageyama says, voice at a whisper. “I may have yelled some really confusing things to him.”

“How confusing, exactly?” Kenma asks, voice flat.

Kageyama winces. “It’s embarrassing.” He buries his face in his hands. “I basically asked him to come over and I could teach him magic and when he told me he was traveling and couldn’t stay, I…”

“Yes?” Kenma is hesitant. The next words out of Kageyama’s mouth might make him faint on the spot.

“I said he could _live with me_ ,” Kageyama finishes, groaning in horror. “And then he looked at me and he got really really red, and I—”

“And you ran away.”

There’s a noise of horrified agreement from behind him.

“You’re stuck in the world’s worst situation, objectively,” Kenma says. “No wonder you’re so embarrassed.”

“I never want that to happen again,” Kageyama says in despair. “With _any_ human.”

“Well,” Kenma says, after a moment of thought, “Do you want to see him again?”

He turns to face Kageyama, who slowly nods after a few seconds.

“Then, if by a miracle he doesn’t place a restraining order on you, talk to him. It’s that simple.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kageyama says, “But how am I gonna _apologize_?”

 _It’s that simple_ , he says to himself in a mocking voice within his head. _Says you, who hasn’t talked to the person you want to talk to. And hasn’t apologized for shoving a crystal in his face or never talking to them despite wanting to._

“When you see him again, you tell him sorry,” Kenma says. He imagines the dream demon smiling back at him. Maybe he’ll light up a little. Maybe he’ll say something back. “And… and then you try to make it work.”

And Kenma doesn’t know if what he did back then was right or wrong, but he still wants to work it out.

Kageyama nods. “I’m still mad he has all that magic and hasn’t done anything with it,” he mutters. 

“Then help him out,” Kenma says.

Kageyama sighs. “Yeah, maybe.” He sits up on the stool by the counter. “Where’s Chinami?”

Kenma wrinkles his nose. “Calling my mother Chinami feels so strange. But she’s traveling, and she decided to leave the house to me.”

“You’re fourteen,” Kageyama says, in disbelief, “child.”

“You’re a child,” Kenma responds. “And you ran over here all by yourself.”

“That’s different.” Kageyama protests.

“Is it really?”

“Yes!”

Kenma shrugs, hands skimming over a few other flowers. But none of them feel quite right so he keeps looking. “Besides, I’m responsible,” he adds. “Also, why do you think you and Ayako have been coming over more often?”

“Ohhhhh.”

“Yeah. _Oh_.”

Kageyama clears his throat. “So, the—that kid. His name’s Hinata.”

“How’d you learn all of this?”

“Uh, he asked me who I was to be getting all up in his face, and I said my name was Kageyama. And then I asked him his, because, that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? And then he squawked at me and told me his name was Hinata. And then he told me not to forget it.” He furrows his brows. “It’s weird. I… didn’t try to fight him, or anything? But he tried to challenge me.” He scowls. “And I was _complimenting_ him!”

“Did you compliment him,” Kenma asks, voice slow and deliberate, “or did you say your name and tell him that you were a prodigy, before telling him that he should have spent all his time on magic instead of whatever he’d been doing.”

“Um,” Kageyama says. “Maybe. Maybe it happened like that. How can you read my mind?”

“Practice.”

“I still don’t understand, though,” Kageyama complains. “Today, I tried to smile at him when I greeted him, and then he just looked like I’d—“

“Like you murdered a rabbit in front of him?”

“No!” Kageyama says. “Actually, yes. But why that imagery?” He shudders. “You psychopath, who would think of that?”

“Anyone who’s seen your smile,” Kenma teases, and then regrets it a little when he sees Kageyama’s disheartened face. “It’s not your smile that’s bad—he just seems to have an overactive imagination, and he was probably already set on edge by you. And whenever you force yourself to smile, it looks really bad. You’re… kind of a bad liar.”

“There are tons of things people don’t notice about me, though.” Kageyama says. “I get away with lots of lies.”

“Your feelings are easy to read,” Kenma says.

“Not to everyone else.”

“Because they’re not looking,” Kenma reassures.

“We had a pretty long conversation,” Kageyama muses. “Even though it was mostly screaming.”

“Was it at least semi-private?” Kenma asks.

Kageyama nods. “I ran into him around here, so it was pretty private.”

Kenma frowns. “He was up here?”

“Ran around to release stress and got lost,” Kageyama explains. “I think crowds freak him out.”

“And… how did you know that?” Kenma asks.

“I notice things!” Kageyama protests.

Kenma looks at him, disbelieving, but he relents after a few moments, sighing. “Okay, I’ll believe that.”

Kageyama shrugs. “It was weird, okay! I know that much. But I wasn’t screaming all the time. I’m not good at screaming. I, like—said stuff quietly. Sometimes. Maybe I glared a lot. I’m not good at this.”

“I’m sure he screamed as soon as you started muttering under your breath,” Kenma mutters under his breath, like a self-aware hypocrite.

“I just don’t know what to do,” Kageyama says.

Kenma huffs. “Give that kid a break.”

His hand hovers over the marigolds, and then he grabs them. Despite the message of cruelty, marigolds are gorgeous, and they have different meanings. He picks out some bright ones—Marigold Colossus and Safari Scarlet, if he remembers correctly—and turns to face Kageyama as he arranges the flowers.

Kageyama stares up at the ceiling, having forgotten momentarily about his failure of a conversation. He often does that, during silence. “It was nice being only a year younger than you,” he sighs.

“A month does not make a difference,” Kenma says, fiddling around with the marigolds and poppies. There’s a delicate balance required for this, but as he shuffles around the bouquet, it reminds him a lot of fire.

“It’s two years,” Kageyama groans. “You know who else is fifteen? The oh-so-great Oikawa Tooru.”

“Who’s that?” Kenma asks, tying off the bouquet with a bright orange ribbon. It’s a small bouquet, really. It’s more like something that should be put into a vase. But he likes it that way.

“The greatest curse-breaker ever,” Kageyama says, sounding like someone who doubts it with their entire soul. “And he’s only fifteen.” Kageyama frowns. “I think he turned sixteen a few months ago, actually.”

Kenma shrugs. “I’m not competing with that. I can’t break a curse without magic.”

Kageyama huffs. “I guess.”

Kenma frowns. “Wait,” he says, slowly. “I haven’t done anything related to curse-breaking. Why do you think—”

“You’d be good at it!” Kenma blurts out. “You really, really would! It’s like, all this logic, and you’d love it.”

“You’re logical enough when it comes to magic,” Kenma says.

“But it’s not a puzzle,” Kageyama responds. “Curse-breaking is a complicated puzzle. And you’re great at puzzles.”

“Have you seen me do a puzzle in my entire life?” Kenma asks.

He’s surprised when Kageyama nods. “Yeah. You figured out how to let me cast magic. That was a puzzle.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“Does too.”

“Does not.”

“Does too.”

“Give me one reason.”

“Like—” Kageyama begins, before breaking his sentence off. “You were the only one that noticed.”

“It wasn’t hard.”

“You notice a lot of things I don’t,” Kageyama argues.

“Lots of people do.”

He furrows his brows. “But you—”

“He’s probably been training since he was born,” Kenma points out. “I’m not that kind of person. I’ll never be dedicated enough to do something like that.”

“You might not understand it, but you look at everything like it’s a puzzle,” Kageyama says. “It’s the way you look at magic. You piece things together. There’s no one I know who does that.”

“I don’t think so,” Kenma says. ‘It’s just a thing I do. Everything I’ve done has been done before.”

Kageyama meets his eyes. If Kageyama didn’t constantly embarrass himself, Kenma would almost feel like he was being seen right through. He still feels like that, in fact. Something about Kageyama just always catches him off guard; after he thinks he knows everything, he realizes he keeps forgetting things.

“Magic isn’t the biggest part of curse-breaking,” Kageyama says, “and you know it. You know things. But you’re afraid of them.”

There is a thread between them that pulls the tension taut. It is too tough to cut through.

“I am afraid of my own insignificance,” Kenma confesses. Out of all things, he did not expect to be so vulnerable in the daylight.

“And who’s fault is that?” Kageyama asks.

The silence grows between them for a minute, before Kageyama sighs. “Pull your hair back,” he says. “It’s falling over your eyes.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I—“” he sighs again. “Fine,” Kageyama says, petulant. “I was really hoping you could…I don’t know, beat him.”

“Do you have a grudge?”

“I suck at curse-breaking,” Kageyama says. “It’s so stupid and I don’t get it at all. It’s so… so delicate. Like the flower stuff.” He pauses. “Another reason you’d be good at it.”

The tension between them has eased. Kageyama’s still asking, but he’s not pushing. And that’s something normal.

Kenma holds out the bouquet to him. “Like this?”

Kageyama nods emphatically. “Yeah! It’s such a good bouquet. I like it.”

“Great,” Kenma says. “Take it.”

Kageyama blinks at him in surprise. “Why?”

“Give it to Hinata, as an apology. Also, this will keep your hands occupied so you don’t grab at him.”

“I don’t grab at him,” Kageyama says, brows scrunched, like he’s trying to recall if he ever did grab at a stranger and freak them out. “Also,” he adds with a frown, “aren’t flowers romantic?”

“Yellow poppies mean wealth and success,” Kenma says, “and marigolds can mean cruelty, but they can mean the warmth of the sun or something like that. Romance is dead, young Kageyama.”

“I thought you weren’t that older than me,” Kageyama mumbles as he accepts the bouquet, albeit reluctantly. He studies the bouquet for a bit. “There’s not a lot of flowers,” he comments.

“I’m not wasting money on you,” Kenma responds. “Also, do you _really_ want more flowers? By your standards, wouldn’t that make it, I don’t know, _more_ romantic?”

Kageyama wrinkles his nose. “Okay, I see your point.”

Kenma grabs another bouquet, and searches through the drawer for the right colored bow.

“I still think you don’t know what curse-breaking is about,” Kageyama says. “I’m so bad at explanations.”

“Yeah, you seem pretty awful at convincing me to listen,” Kenma replies. “It’s why I’m not listening.”

“C’mon,” Kageyama says. “Would it really hurt to be cooperative?”

He finds a plain and elegant black bow, and calls it good. Kageyama is still staring at Kenma, waiting for his answers.

“I know you have this… grudge against this Oikawa person,” Kenma says. “And I don’t understand it. Try to convince me.”

“I’m asking for your help.”

At that, Kenma meets his eyes. “My help?” he asks. “I know nothing.”

“Because I haven’t explained it well,” Kageyama says. “So if you _let_ me—”

“This _is_ me letting you,” Kenma says.

Kageyama blinks in surprise. “Okay.”

“You are my friend,” Kenma adds. “It’s not… strange, that I’m letting you this.”

Kageyama smiles. “Curse-breaking, as I understand it,” he begins, speaking slowly so that he can form the right words, “is like countering magic.”

Kenma freezes. He feels lucky that his hands are obscured by the desk. “Sound obvious enough,” he retorts, careful not to betray his hesitance. “I meant, how does curse-breaking work.”

“A lot of it is these quick rituals, for simple curse removals. And then everyone in a while, demons cast big curses, or curses accumulate and mutate into something else. That’s often when spell work comes in. So they build this perfect counter to a curse, and then they set it off, and if it goes right, it works.”

“And every curse has a counter?”

Kageyama nods. “Every curse sets conditions upon the one it inflicts. To gain that kind of power, it sets a condition on itself. And that becomes its weakness.”

“It does seem a little like a puzzle,” Kenma remarks. “But it doesn’t seem right for me.”

“Why not?”

“This seems like a job where you have to interact with other people.”

“You’re better at interaction than I am,” Kageyama argues.

“Only from an objective standpoint,” Kenma replies. “And I still can’t use magic,” he adds, “so I think that I’d be very bad at it. You must need some magic for this, don’t you?”

“Not for the small things, I don’t think.”

He frowns. “If any human could do it, why would curse-breakers even be valuable?”

Kageyama smiles. “Because they guard their secrets.”

“Because each curse is different, most likely,” Kenma says. “And maybe that.”

“I could… do the magic for you,” Kageyama says. “If you really wanted it.”

“And I don’t,” Kenma responds. “I want a satisfactory life, and I’m not sacrificing you for this.”

Kageyama’s brows furrow.

“Would you really give up your entire dream for me?” Kenma challenges.

And the answer is easy. “No.”

“Then that’s it.”

“You won’t even try?” Kageyama says.

“Until it becomes important to me? No.”

Kageyama nods. “That’s fair,” he says.

“You really don’t like this Oikawa person, huh?” Kenma mutters.

 “He’s good at what he does,” Kageyama admits, albeit begrudgingly. “But I don’t trust him,” he declares. “He seems so wrapped up in his own image.”

Kenma hums in thought. “If he knows how people perceive him, he can probably get more work.”

“I just don’t like him,” Kageyama grumbles. “I don’t know why.”

Kenma sighs. “You two aren’t even in the same field. I don’t care if you’re destined rivals. Just ignore this Oikawa person and give that kid a bouquet and an apology.”

Kageyama squawks an indignant reply, but Kenma is already pushing him out the door, and Kageyama finally complies, setting off into the village.

Kenma sighs and sits down on the stool.

He’s not dealing with countering magic. It seems like something a little too dangerous, a little too vicious. The implications of being able to turn magic on its head, with only a little— _and maybe even none_ , a voice in his head whispers—amount of power is terrifying.

Quietly, he packs the bouquets he’s finished. He braids his hair, making sure to pull the strands away from his face, and pins in some lavender for protection. The scent makes him feel at ease.

He doesn’t like making deliveries, but it’s something he has to do. There is a strand of hair falling above his eyes, and so he grabs a jeweled pin from his mother’s room and pins it back. Kageyama lives with a sort of confidence that allows him to exist naturally in every place he’s in. Kenma has no such comfort. If he’s going to look unsettling or demonic, he may as well look put-together.

Kenma puts the bouquets in a satchel, and he slips his magical circle journal in there, for good measure. Inspiration is fickle creature, and you always need a place to write those thoughts down. He doubts anyone will take kindly to seeing him writing strange runes in a journal, but holding it and having it makes him feel like something in his life is staying constant.

He almost regrets sending Kageyama away. Even if Kageyama is a mess, it’s easier to breathe when he is there. But sooner or later, Kenma will have to get used to this. Later in life, his journal might not even be a constant.

It is the nature of life to bring about change, and Kenma knows that, even if he resists it.

And maybe something in him does want it, in the darkest recesses of his mind. Maybe he wants something new. He’s been hanging onto old and dead promises, and his refusals make him feel dismal. It’s why Kageyama keeps pushing. It’s because he’s just a little too perceptive for his own good, and because he knows that if he keeps pushing, something in Kenma might give in a little. He doesn’t know which pieces will crumble first, but he knows it will be a disaster.

Kenma shakes his head, willing himself to calm down. His mother will be back tomorrow morning, and she will guide him through days with her easy footsteps. And he will bury his pieces and follow. He knows how it will go. It will be early and bright, and after a muted color that leaves him warm but hollow, Kenma will wake to see her. And then she will smile, wish him a happy birthday, promise to bake him something later, and take a nap.

It hasn’t been fun, being alone. It lets him dwell on thoughts and spin himself in worse circles than usual. He doesn’t like that feeling. Being alone is nice, but being isolated is not.

The quiet. That’s nice. And you can be quiet with others, when you need to.

Isolation turns to loneliness all too quick. And when you are lonely, you become desperate, and you want things, and then, all of a sudden, you need things, and the passion kicks into overdrive and the logic gets trampled over by a stampeding, frenzied herd.

He really should have brought Kageyama along. Kenma feels about ten times less sure of himself and how to deal with the outside world when he’s not around. If it’s Kageyama, people pull away and glare from afar. If it is Kenma, people approach him like they want to poke at a strange creature in a glass box. And despite Kageyama’s flaws, with him at Kenma’s side, he finds himself a lot less ready to do stupid things. Maybe it’s dumb, that Kageyama has become Kenma’s impulse control, solely by the virtue of being a little young, and a little naïve.

But Kenma has never had delusions of grandeur. He knows he’s an idiot a lot of the time.

With a sigh, he locks the doors of his house, and sets off down the hill.

There’s a feeling at the back of his mind, and it tugs at him like he’s on the verge of a breakthrough but not quite. He can feel a headache coming on, and closes his eyes, trying to feel normal. But Kenma feels like a disaster instead.

He chalks it up to his birthday coming around the corner. Ever since he was nine, Kenma has gotten jittery around birthdays. There’s something about the dream demon, and the way he’s like a puzzle Kenma can’t solve.

On a better day, Kenma could explain his fascination away with the forbidden aspect of their interactions. But he knows it is nothing like that. If he really looks back and allows himself to think it, he knows that he’s probably been fascinated ever since he was little. And he knows that there’s something a little different about the dream demon. He doesn’t feel like a nightmare, and he doesn’t feel like a human.

Maybe Kageyama is right about curse-breaking. Kenma always does seem to be hung up on a puzzle, after all.

He sighs. He’s not the kind of person who’s about to reach beyond his limits. He can wax poetic about magic, but he can’t do it. And honestly, that’s fine.

Even still, his words sound hollow inside his head. Maybe it’s just because he’s been put into a position where he doesn’t quite fit.

Kenma sees the village approaching him. He swallows his fears down, and pulls out a folded piece of parchment. He lets everything fall away from him, and focuses on the directions like his life depends on it.

He’s not dealing with counter-magic.

 

* * *

 

The town is like a stranger to him. The people here are people he’s been to school with, people who have lived here for years and years, and Kenma has spent far too long avoiding them. He cannot pick out a single name or face out of the crowd. They just feel distantly familiar, like a relative you’re supposed to know but can only vaguely recall seeing once.

Ukai’s shop, at the very least, is familiar to him, so he decides to make that delivery first. “Hello?” he calls out.

Ukai pops in from the back. “Oh, it’s you,” he says, taking notice of the bouquets. “Need any magic done on those?”

“No, no,” Kenma says. “Thank you for the help, though.”  
“It’s fine,” Ukai says. “The herbs are worth it.”

Kenma looks around, but he can’t see anyone. “Actually,” he says, “I have a delivery to make here, and it’s not for you.” He clears his throat. “Is there a Sugawara Koushi here?”

A slightly short head peeks out from the back room. Maybe he’s not really that short. But Kenma’s category for tall and short basically translate to _taller than Kageyama_ and _shorter than Kageyama_ , and this boy fits into the latter category. Most people do. 

Sugawara’s hair is a silvery color that’s just bright enough so it doesn’t look like hair that’s been grayed from stress. Kenma wonders if it’s been spelled, but it looks incredibly real.

“That’s me!” he announces with a soft smile. His face doesn’t betray any surprise at Kenma’s appearance, and that sets Kenma on edge. But then again, he seems to be with Ukai, and Kenma trusts Ukai. So maybe Sugawara is just a little more perceptive than others.

“You can call me Suga,” he says, and he’s radiating waves of calm aura. Kenma, for a moment, wonders if it’s magical.

He nods. “Suga, then,” he says, and holds out the bouquet.

Ukai eyes the both of them, unimpressed. “Are those for experiments?”

Suga tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. This close, Kenma can tell that Suga’s only a few inches taller than him. With grace, he accepts the bouquet from Kenma’s hands. _Maybe it’s not magic_ , Kenma thinks. The air of grace and peace that Suga creates seems like it’s been trained into him. He watches the way Suga’s fingers curl around the bouquet, and he absentmindedly thinks that Suga must play piano. His hands and the way they move just seem that delicate.

“It’s not for experiments,” Suga clarifies, and Kenma does not express his relief but he feels it. It would be an idiotic idea to rip apart a bouquet for an experiment. Medicinal flowers can be obtained for much cheaper.

Ukai still looks suspicious, so Suga says, “It’s for…a friend of mine?”

“You seem unsure about that,” Ukai says.

Suga shrugs. “Life is unsure. I got these flowers because you said that her flowers were very good.”

Ukai nods. “The best. I’ve never seen better flowers.” He turns his gaze towards Kenma. “Is Chinami coming back tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Kenma replies, checking the box next to Ukai’s place on his map. “I said she could stay for longer, but she insisted otherwise.”

He keeps his voice light. It feels strange to talk about her with someone else in the room. It feels strange to hear her be called Chinami, but he’s been around Ukai long enough that it feels natural.

“She wouldn’t want to miss your birthday for the world,” Ukai says. “You know that, right?”

“I know,” Kenma says. “But I think it would be nice if she could see the world instead.”

“You sound like you’re chaining your mother down,” Ukai says.

Kenma’s smile is brittle. “Maybe I am.”

Suga digs through his pockets, watching them with a hesitant gaze, and after a while, presses coins into Kenma’s hand. He counts them off quickly.

“This is such a pretty bouquet,” Suga marvels. “What are the flowers?”

“Black hollyhock and white lilies,” Kenma replies. “The edges are black calla lilies and white poppies. There are black velvet petunias in the middle.”

Sugawara keeps staring at it, and doubt bites its way into Kenma’s mind.

He frowns. “It’s really not very pretty as a whole,” he says. “But they’re in the colors you wanted.”

“I think I’ll disagree,” Suga says. “I like it. Even if it looks like too much, my friend will just split these up around the house.”

Kenma smiles. “Are they planning on keeping them alive?”

“Of course,” Suga says. “Things are supposed to live.”

“Not always,” Kenma says. “Things live until they die, sometimes. And when they die, they are not supposed to be living anymore.”

“Not a fan of necromancy?” Suga asks, a glint in his eyes, and Kenma can tell he’s only teasing.

“Not a fan of magic,” Kenma responds, and Ukai shoots him a look. He probably thinks he is lying, but Kenma is not. He likes spells, and he likes Kageyama’s art, but he doesn’t like magic.

Maybe he is in the same vein as all those envious hearts that were told that they were destined to be ordinary. Kenma does not want to be that way, but maybe he is.

“Magic is a hard topic,” Sugawara says. “Lots of memorization. I’m not a fan of that part of it.”

“Part?”

He doesn’t know what it is about Suga that seems to draw these answers from him. Maybe it’s the fact that Suga is another human, and Kenma has no impulse control. And Suga is nice enough, and he seems at ease around him, which is more than Kenma can say for the general population.

“Well, you know, there’s lots to magic,” Suga says, and he doesn’t even sound the least bit mocking. “Potions like this, which really just require magic energy, and magic spells, which is the famous one. And then there’s things like curse-breaking, which is intensive and much more about observational knowledge, and then there are those who spend their time unlocking and researching artifacts or animals, and how they interact with magic and the world.”

“Yeah,” Kenma says, mulling it over. “I suppose I never really differentiated them.”

Suga smiles. “It’s not a necessary thing,” he says. “But I think the way we understand magic is different based on which field we study.”

“But magic is the same all around,” Kenma says. “You cannot change its basic quality.”

“But we don’t know the basic quality of magic,” Suga says, and his eyes are sparkling.

“Suga, don’t pull the kid into a discussion,” Ukai says, breaking the conversation apart. “He has work to do. So do you.”

“Sorry,” Suga says, sheepish. “Didn’t mean to distract you.”  
“I got carried away as well,” Kenma says. “It’s not your fault.”

“Still,” Suga says, motioning to the flowers, “even if things have an end, I think it would be nice if they lived a bit. Don’t you agree?”

Kenma traces his hands over the petals, and warmth rocks through him. The flowers seem to glow brighter under his hands. “I hope they live as long as they can,” he says.

Suga grins. “Fancy discussions aside, I admire your skill with flowers,” he says. “And you’re so young!”

“Not really,” Kenma says. “It’s a family business, so it’s not a hard thing to pick up.”

Kenma’s eyes flick over to Ukai. He doesn’t seem to be disgruntled by the way Suga takes up space here, or the fact that he asked for a delivery to be brought here instead of another place. In fact, Suga had popped in from the back room, which Kenma knows only a select few have been, since it carries all his treasured ingredients.

His brows furrow. “Are you Ukai’s apprentice?” he asks.

 “Not yet,” Suga replies, and he sounds confident. 

“If he learns how to actually do things right, I’ll consider it,” Ukai says. “But he’s just sticking around for now.”  
Kenma raises an eyebrow. Suga doesn’t seem like he’s going anywhere. “If you say so.”

“Get your other deliveries done, kid,” Ukai tells him, and ushers him out of the store. Normally, he knows Ukai would probably ruffle his hair, but he’s careful with it today.

Ukai knows things, too. Kenma thinks that he is a little too nice to the world. He feels like he should be grateful for the fact, but it only unsettles him. It makes him wonder if he should be doing anything differently.

Kenma is unclear in which direction to move in his future, but his feet take him to the other delivery locations, so he has something to occupy him, even for a short while.

But the walk is painful. There are eyes on him wherever he goes, and so he remains hyper-vigilant, hand on his bag, careful to protect his bouquets. And in the hush that falls over the crowd whenever Kenma is near, a gaping chasm of emptiness clears away in his head.

And it’s there that all his thoughts lurk. He is unsure, and scared, and does not know if he will make it through the next few years okay. He doesn’t know how to change himself to make people like him, or even treat him with basic decency. He doesn’t know if he wants to.

When Kenma knocks on the next place’s door, it opens just a creak.

“Leave it by the front,” a voice says, pitched unnaturally high. An assortment of coins is flung out of the door, and Kenma sighs. It will be annoying to pick up.

He nods and the person shuts the door.

Others are a little less paranoid, because they know Chinami, and they like the flowers. They tend to treat him like glass, not for concern of Kenma’s life, but rather because they think they’ll be cursed if they touch him. He’s gotten healthier, and he doesn’t think he looks like an abomination, but rumors stick around. He’s sure someone has spun a tale about the lightning coming out of his fingers and how he wields demon magic at the drop of a hat.

Kenma still doesn’t even know what that _was_.

The thing is, he barely even remembers the lightning. He remembers the anger, and the pain, but above all that, he remembers the warmth of the vine on his skin, and he remembers the panicked voice of the dream demon. He remembers, even if it was just a word, a voluntary _yes_.

It felt awkward and unreal in the daylight, but if he thinks about it, that was the first time he’d ever willfully responded to the dream demon, apart from their first few meetings. And that scares him.

Because even though the two events may not be correlated, the dream demon has disappeared soon after that, with barely a warning.

And he hates that he still wants to talk to him. That he felt nothing but relief when he dream demon saved him, that he didn’t question it when it happened, that he didn’t feel anger at the abandonment.

He thinks it would have been better if he felt nothing, but he felt something, and that makes all the difference. He wants these things that he cannot have, that he should not have, and he knows he needs to deal with that desire.

But he can’t. He promised, and even though he knows he’s broken that promise in different ways, it feels like snipping away at a woven rope. He still hasn’t had a proper conversation like the first one, and for the essence of his promise, that is enough.

His mother doesn’t talk about it. He feels like she knows he is hiding something, but all she does is trust him. And she trusts him to do the right thing, and that’s why Kenma can’t break his promise any further.

He wonders if the people would treat him any different if the dream demon were well and truly gone, and if he did not have nightmares. But it feels like they have a curse written in their blood, because the dream demon, no matter how much he fades away, cannot escape him. Kenma has seen his wings, and he knows the dream demon can fly anywhere, that he has the strength to overcome thousands of nightmares. But he does not leave.

Then again, nightmares are only scary when they are your own.

Kenma wonders if the dream demon has any nightmares, and then he wonders why he thinks so much about him.

That has an easy answer. Just like the dream demon, Kenma’s curse is that he does not know how to stay away from him.

So the world as it is won’t change. He will keep his promise because he does not want to properly explain his thoughts and feelings to anyone, because they will see right through him. When they swirl around in his head, he can lie his way out of the path they lead. And because of this, the way people treat him will not change. It is a sad constant to be stuck in, but Kenma is desperate to stay there. With his luck, change will only send him hurtling into a downswing of uglier feelings.

And at the very least, people pay him, and they pay him well, because flowers look beautiful, no matter where they come from. He owes this to his mother, because she arranges flowers so beautifully that not even his perceived monstrosity can taint them. He thinks about how grateful he is to her as he walks down the street.

There’s a blur of orange in front of him, and Kenma shrinks back, missing a collision by a hair’s breadth. He watches as a short boy tumbles into the road with startling ferocity. His breathing is hard and he’s whispering frantically under his breath, and Kenma doesn’t know what to do. The boy is staring at his scraped knees with wide eyes and he looks like he’s going to dissolve into hysteria any second.  
He looks around. There are people watching the both of them with wide eyes. _They think I did it_ , he thinks. It feels like there’s a stone lodged in his throat. He really, really doesn’t like being watched.

But the kid’s hands are shaking, just like Kageyama, all alone in that dark alley, and this boy might have vibrant hair and look filled with energy, but no one is coming near him. He’s alone, too.

The eyes around him feel like they are burning wounds into Kenma’s back.

 _But he’s hurt, and he’s scared_ , Kenma thinks, so he approaches him, slow and careful, like you do with a spooked animal.

There’s a strange buzz in the air that makes him hesitate. It feels like raw power, surging to greater intensities, and it’s flooding through the streets like wildfire. His skin tingles, but he pushes the feeling to the back of his mind, because it’s not something Kenma can control. He crouches next to the boy. He looks so young.

“You okay?” he asks, and the boy looks at him, wide-eyed. “Uh—”

“You seem like you need some medicine for that cut,” Kenma says, trying to keep the conversation as direct as possible.

The boy is still staring at him in surprise, but he slowly nods. Kenma feels uncomfortable under his bright gaze.

“There is an apothecary down the street,” he says. “Take the left at the center fountain and you should see it soon enough.”

The boy nods. “I didn’t mean to end up here,” he says. Kenma doesn’t know what to make of that statement.

“Can you walk?” he asks, and though it pains him, he offers his hand. He can feel people staring at him, and in that slightly bent position, the silence that passes between them hurts.

The boy leans away. “I don’t want to get your hand all bloody!” he explains, quickly. And then he bounces up, nods at Kenma, and runs off.  
Kenma blinks. For the people who’ve actually talked to him today, the conversations he’s been having have been relatively pleasant. He knows that the attention he’s getting from bystanders will only damage his awful reputation, though. With how quickly the boy had run, anyone would think he was afraid of Kenma’s touch.

Kenma pushes past the crowd that’s looking at him with narrowed eyes. They part before him out of fear and disgust, and he keeps his head down. The bittersweet feeling of that conversation quickly turns into an ugly one. There’s footsteps thundering around him in a mad dance that makes him want to curl up into a ball and tighten his fists until the storm passes, but he doesn’t even know if the sounds are that loud or his head just hurts. Maybe it’s his heartbeat screaming at the world.

Just then, there’s a sharp yank on his hair, and the ground slips from under him. He falls to the ground with a hard smack, and though he manages to save the bouquet in his hands, the awkward position he’s landed in has scraped off the skin on his hands. At least he was able to twist around and break his fall. At least he could save the bouquet.

The rest, Kenma knows, is going to be a disaster.

Groaning, he stands up, ignoring the blood dripping down his arms and the way his skin stings. Now that he’s standing, albeit shakily, he notices that his face is stinging, too, and winces.

“Got it!” he hears, and he looks down to see a child holding his lavender tight in her fists. He reaches for it, hoping she’ll just drop it, but she holds it close to herself and backs away into a mother’s fierce embrace. Her hands are twisting the stems of the lavender, and as Kenma steps closer, her nails dig into it. It feels like she’s digging into his own skin, the way that she handles them so callously.

“Don’t touch my child!” the mother yells, and Kenma can feel the crowd grow larger. He feels the terror boiling in his stomach as the crowd closes in around him.

He can only imagine what he looks like with the dirt and the blood and the dust on his face, and the disheveled hair falling over his haggard face. To onlookers, it is probably a sight many times more horrific. From experience, Kenma knows that fear only amplifies and exaggerates your senses.

“I just need my lavender,” he says, keeping his voice level. If he gets emotional about the lavender, then everything will get worse. “If she could give that back…”  
The mother’s eyes widen, and she rips the lavender out of the child’s hand. She tosses it at the ground like it’s stung her.

Kenma is the one who’s bleeding, but she doesn’t seem to care or notice.

“I’ve told her not to touch _dirty_ things,” she says, staring pointedly at his as he bends to pick up his lavender.

He keeps eye contact, crouching down with his back mostly straight, trying to keep the semblance of grace, and picks up the dirtied lavender, placing it gently in his bag.

“You can take your lavender,” she announces, and she doesn’t break eye contact, which Kenma immediately recognizes as a problem. “Make your nefarious schemes or whatever. We all know what you’re up to. Don’t think you’ll get the better of us.”

He hates her, because she’s not really meeting his eyes. She just stares at him like she’s looking past him. “Don’t try to pretend you’re like us. You’re not human. People tolerate you and let you stay here because they’re all deceived by your _pretty_ flowers, but I know better.” She says the word pretty like it is a curse, and somehow it makes him feel worse than when she called him dirty.

It is hard to hear it, face-to-face, from someone much older than him. But Kenma accepts life as it is.

“We all know what you did to that poor, poor kid!” the woman yells. “Their family up and left this town, and we all know why! I bet you were going to kill him, when you had the chance!”

There’s a shocked gasp from the crowd. But no one steps forward. No one says she’s going too far. Maybe they all believe it. Maybe those planted seeds are sprouting, and they’re all looking at him with quiet loathing.

“But you didn’t kill him in front of us because you’re sneaky,” she murmurs, and then she smiles, wicked. Kenma does not know why he was ever afraid of nightmares. The roots of his fear all live here, with clawing suspicions and endless chatter that poisons the air.

“Or maybe,” the mother says, smile twisting her face, “you’re afraid?”

Kenma stands, bag slung over his shoulder, bouquet tucked against his side.

His free hand seeks comfort, and on instinct, it reaches for the lavender. It’s been mangled beyond and visible beauty, from being ripped out of that girl’s hands and thrust on the ground. But the best part of lavender has always been its sweet smell, and that hasn’t left it yet. Flowers are many more things then their petals and colors and appearance. He cannot leave it all by itself and let it perish without ever having its value recognized.

Kenma bites his lip, unsure of where to go. He’s just been called a murderer, and though the crowd still stays a safe distance away from him, he wonders if they will let him leave that easily. An uncomfortable feeling settles in his chest and he recognizes it as claustrophobia. It’s not something that usually frightens him, but today, he feels like he’s being suffocated.

 _You think I’m afraid?_ Kenma thinks. _And what will you do about it?_

Fear, for him, is a tricky thing. He’s a little too used to it and it just makes him numb. But that’s under the cover of dreams, and daylight is a different beast.

“My daughter, she’s got magic,” the mother says. “She’s been born to get rid of things like you. You’re going free for now, because the people here are all damn cowards. But when she grows up, you’ll be gone.”

“What a prodigy,” Kenma murmurs under his breath, and the fear in him shifts into anger.

At this point, Kageyama is the only thing that keeps him from thinking all magicians are awful people. Ukai and Ayako are legends—so of course they’re exceptions. Maybe Kageyama is a legend too, actually. But Sugawara doesn’t seem to have much magic, and he was nice enough. But he doesn’t know about Sugawara. Sugawara could be a genius and Kenma could just not know. So really, all Kenma has as an assurance that magicians aren’t awful people is half a chance. The thought does not reassure him.

Kenma squints at the girl. She has a little aura, but not much, and by the way she holds her mother’s arm, she looks lost. _Good luck_ , he mouths at her, because he feels like being a little mean. She glances up at him with frightened eyes. She will not have good luck.  
The mother does not notice him. Kenma looks at her. He looks at her for so long he knows it’s uncomfortable. She steps back.

 _You’re afraid of me_ , he thinks, and he walks right past her. Nobody notices the way he flinches as the crowd parts before him in horror.

He makes a sharp right into a more secluded part of the town, and once he finds no prying eyes, he pulls the clip from his hair and drops it in his bag. Then he undoes his braid and lets his hair fall all around him. Though he’d combed it that morning, after the fall, it has a rough texture that doesn’t mix well with his probably bleeding cheek.

But he keeps his hair as it is, and lets it shield his face. He really doesn’t want to be seen.

The converse also applies. He doesn’t think he can stand another moment of looking at all these faces.

He appears to the last door covered in dirt and thoroughly exhausted. He holds the bouquet out to the man who answers the door, and the man stares at him.

“Scram,” he says, and slams the door shut. He takes no notice of Kenma’s sorry state. Maybe it is proof that no matter what he does, people will only look at him one way. 

Maybe the man had just decided to ignore it. If he is content to never know, because if he knows and acknowledges it, he will have to do something about it.

Kenma stares at the door for a while. _No magician has ever been called a demon_ , he thinks.

But he’s no magician.

He stands there for a few moments, and the angry, empty silence sinks into him. He thinks it before he feels it.

 _Disaster_.

A miasma of thoughts flood the air and Kenma can hear cackling in the distance. He shuts his eyes, as if it will somehow make him deaf to the familiar, awful sound, but even if he were deaf, his head is pounding and everything in him hurts. The sting from his hands and cheek feel like it’s crawling over his entire body.

He feels something he doesn’t know building up in him. Something—something—is he sad? Is he tired? _No_ , he thinks, clutching the bouquet close to his chest. It’s a bouquet of petunias—some so deep a red it could be called crimson, and black velvet petunias. He can see the hints of purple in them, accentuated by dark purple petunias scattered in the bunch. It’s a pristine and beautiful bouquet, and Kenma has worked so hard on it, and he’d saved it at the expense of himself, and—

And that man had rejected it. Rejected its beauty, because Kenma was the one holding it. Even his mother’s gift can no longer help him.

 _No_ , he thinks again. _That something I don’t know, the hurt I can’t solve… I know it._

And he can feel that something swirling within him like a deep and inky darkness, washing away his blood until only it remains. 

 _Oh_ , he thinks. _It’s emotion._

He feels the ghosts of eyes trailing down his back. He grits his teeth and begins the trek home. Every breath, every step—people not only _dislike_ him, they actively go out of their way to show their contempt. Every breath, every step—he is alone.

Kenma thinks of dreams and he thinks of the darkest blacks he knows, and if he wonders if anyone will ever treat him like a person. Not like glass, not like sadness, not like a curse. He wishes that people would look at him and see someone normal. If he could just _be_ —

Anything. Everything. He doesn’t want stares or attention. He just wants to live life like normal people do. He doesn’t want to be a special and misunderstood snowflake. He wants to be a person.

And he wants, and he _wants_ —

The thoughts swirl around his head like a hurricane, and then suddenly Kenma’s head goes blank, devoid of everything but a vague, encompassing hurt.

He looks out at the street, meets someone’s eyes, and they flinch. Something in him splits and suddenly he feels like a tumbling rock and it makes its way down a jagged mountain, as the assault of rock against rock breaks the boulder to shards.

And like any tight, wound up thing, when he lets go, he rockets forward. Kenma runs all the way home, and his feet hurt as they thud and thud against the ground, but he doesn’t care. His sandals fly off his feet three fourths of the way through, and he leaves them where they are. The scent of the lavender floods his brain and all he knows is that he’s holding the bouquet and the bag and he just keep running. His chest is tight and it hurts. He’s stepped on something sharp, because his feet are bleeding, but with the way he is, everything in his is bleeding. He cannot stop clutching at his heart and wondering if the pain will ever ease.

He’s dripping red when he shoves the keys into the door and clumsily unlocks it, but he doesn’t care.

Or maybe he does care. Maybe he just cares too much, feels too much—

Why did he ever want to feel things brightly? Why did he ever bother to learn things?

He slams the door shut as soon as he’s inside. The sound is loud and bold and bright.

He drops against the wall, gasping for air. The bag slips off his shoulder and hits the ground, and the bouquet slips out of his hands. Red spots color his blurry vision.

He’s tired. He’s so, so tired of _everything_ —

And then there’s that darkness, that emotion that’s been rising up in him like something fierce and ugly, and Kenma spots the kitchen knife out of the corner of his eyes.

Something in him sparks.

He’s quick. He’s so, so quick.

He stumbles his way to the knife and holds it in his shaky grip. He bunches his hair together with his free hand, and feels the dirt and the blood and the shame within it.

He wants it gone.

He’s crying as he does it, and he doesn’t know why. But the knife slices its way through his hair, poorly held together by Kenma’s bleeding hand. He works through the hair in jagged cuts, staring at the floor, not blinking.

Black blurs fall around him, and the pool around his feet. His tears mix with the blood and dirt and hair, and his vision swims. 

His hand is empty. He must have finished cutting it.

The handle of the knife is dirty. He feels dirty.

Kenma places the knife back where it belongs, and he sinks to the floor. He’s staring at the ground, but he’s not really seeing anything.

 _I have to clean this up_ , he thinks.

He’s not sure it the state he’s in is a downswing or not. But it is a violent change, just like he had predicted. But his predictions did not measure the scale of hurt, could not prepare him for this.

In the aftermath, his fear makes him numb.

He goes through the motions. He sweeps up his hair and throws it out. He cleans the knife and he cleans his hand and face and hair and everything until you could not even think of a single speck of grime touching him.

He feels like he is burning his body raw. He walks back and fetches his sandals, buries the lavender in the dirt, and dusts off the bouquet. He walks into the store and places the bouquet on the counter. The scent of the flowers hits him like an avalanche, and as soon as he places the bouquet on the counter, he’s sinking down on his knees again, and he’s bawling like a baby. Again.

But no one hears him.

Kenma cries and cries until his voice is hoarse, and when he’s done, he picks his ragged body up, and falls into sleep.

He’s so tired. He’s so angry.

He just—he _needs_ what he wants, now.

He wishes. He wishes with the ferocity and sadness of something desperate and broken, mixed with a malevolent and dismal energy. He is clutching only onto a thread of hope. He wishes that something in the world could take all this inky dark bubbling up in him and swish it all away.

Kenma dreams of golden fields.

 

* * *

 

_He’s sitting in the golden grass and running it through his fingers, feeling the texture as the breeze dances around him._

Happy birthday, _he hears, and Kenma pauses where he is, looking around to see someone. There’s no one there, but he feels like someone is looking into his soul._

_Kenma makes a wish. His heart is thundering in his chest._

 

He wakes to the sun.

His mouth feels ugly and his bones feel weary, but he’s not an ugly, exhausted tired, and the soft feeling flooding through him confuses him.

Kenma yawns. He gets up slowly, slipping out of bed in a slow motion, waking up only once he feels the cold floor underneath him. But it doesn’t shock him, and it doesn’t sting.

He presses a hand to his check and is surprised to find nothing but smooth skin. When he looks at his hands, they still have scrapes, but they are both in better condition than yesterday. And his feet feel much better, too.

It is strange, to feel this good. The memories from yesterday pass by him like a blur, as if it was a distant dream, but he can still taste the remnants of all his bitter thoughts on his tongue.

His hand strays to his hair, tucked behind his ears, and he reaches for his back, and finds nothing. His head feels lighter. He doesn’t know if it feels good yet, but for some reason today has him in a better mood than usual.

His skin is still itchy from all the crying, though. And his throat still feels raw. So he makes his way to the bathroom and gets himself cleaned up, careful not to mess with his hair.  
There is no mirror here, and he wonders what he will look like. He can hear humming from the kitchen, and he stills for a moment before he exits the bathroom, making his way to the kitchen.

His mother is back, and he doesn’t want to make her cry, but he just might. The thought of it leaves a sour feeling clasped in his palms, like weights holding him down. He might cry, too, but he thinks he is spent of tears.  
His steps towards the kitchen feel unsteady, much like a newborn foal on its shaky legs. He prepares himself to talk about the ugly guise of apathy he’s been holding, and all the feelings in him that seem to taunt him.

But every word stops in his throat when he sees her, because that’s just what life is like. The emotion builds, slowly. He’s not that sad. He’s not that frightened. He’s just here, in an empty space, and he wants to talk to his mother, because they both love each other.

 _It’s just good to see her back_ , he thinks. _It’s just really good to have her around._

All the explanations disappear from his head. He is too unclear of himself to truly explain the events of yesterday. All he can do is move forward.

His mother turns towards him, and Kenma freezes under her gaze. Her eyes widen.

“Your hair…” she murmurs.

Kenma picks at the uneven strands. Most of them are short enough so that they don’t touch his shoulders, but they tickle his neck. It’s an irritating feeling, but he will have to get used to it.

“Yeah, I cut it myself,” Kenma says. “I don’t know why…” He trails off, at a loss for an explanation. He’s not sure how to describe the violence of his feelings. He’s not sure if he wants to, either.

“No, the haircut’s messy,” his mother says, shaking her head, “but that’s not it.” She bites her lip, and then moves towards her bedroom. “Let me show you a mirror.”

Kenma looks up at the strands surrounding his face. They look dark yellow, like the back of a sunflower. “Oh,” he says.

“You didn’t know?” his mother asks, when she returns.

“I slept with black hair,” Kenma says. “I think.” A slow yet sudden feeling swoops over him, and suddenly he’s holding his breath in the vast expanse of anticipation that exists right before the fall.

“If it’s any consolation,” his mother says, “it’s pretty.” She shows him his face in the mirror.

And it’s not dark yellow, not at all. It’s _gold_.

And it shines and shimmers and glows just like a trick, but as soon as Kenma sees it in the mirror, he knows the color is not a mirage. 

Kenma stares. He stares some more. He doesn’t think he quite understands what he’s looking at. His hair is gold, and his face is…

 _Color is relative_ , Kageyama had told him one day as he was painting. _Things look different when they’re near different things._ Kenma had taken that as a neat and interesting life perspective.

But Kageyama isn’t a philosopher. What he says—it really is just about color.

His eyes look bright under the shine of gold. His skin carries an almost summery glow to it.

He looks—warm. Bright.

He looks— _magical_.                                          

Kenma remembers festival fireworks, with their bright colors and the way their glitter seemed impossibly close. He remembers trying to touch them and realizing they were nowhere near, and he remembers how temporary they were. Kenma does not like optimism, because as soon as you see something good and nice and pretty, it fades into the dark.

If there is one rule in his life, it is that Kenma shouldn’t wish for anything. Wishes disappoint, because they don’t come true. They leave only yearning and bitterness in their wake.

But Kenma’s hair is gold. And it feels real and tangible as he runs his hands through it, and something in his heart flutters, once, twice, and soars. He runs a careful finger down the lines of his left hand. A shuddery, almost hysterical sound escapes from his lips.

As clear as day, black ink reveals itself on his hand, and slowly it ties itself around Kenma’s arm in a delicate spiral, leaves unfurling. He traces his finger across the black vine and watches as it crackles like fire under his touch, shifting into a dusky gold.

It is the nature of life to bring about change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally we're moving into what i lovingly call phase 2!! i guess you could look at these timeskips and call them fast, but? i feel like. we now know enough about the characters in this au that we can reasonably. yknow fill in the spaces. oh and fun fact: this fic is planned to be 20 chapters
> 
> find me @ sonnets-of-beauty !!! and like. feel free to comment and tell me ur thoughts!!


	10. is it real or a fable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Maybe if you just stay inside, everything will blow over,” Kageyama says. “Rumors die in—what number was it again—75 days, so you should be able to go out then.”
> 
> Kenma scowls. “No way,” he says. “I just started to like going outside. Nobody’s going to stop me from going where I want to anymore.”
> 
> “That’s brave,” Kageyama marvels. “And stupid. People are definitely going to chase you around.”
> 
> Kenma whips towards him. “Oh yeah? _You’re_ lecturing me on stupidity?”
> 
> Kageyama goes red in about a second. “I—”
> 
> “I’m going to do what I want,” Kenma says. “I don’t—I don’t _care_ what they think. If I’m going to stand out no matter _what_ I do, I might as well do it on my own terms.”
> 
> Kageyama smiles. “That’s sounds nice.”
> 
> Kenma sighs. “I hope it’s nice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally im so sorry for the delay. heres a 14k chapter!!
> 
> edit: forgot to add the summary and the ch title orz

When he breaks out of his trance, his mother notices the scrapes on his hand and demands to know answers. And Kenma tries his best to recount the details. He does not gloss over the events and try to make her feel better, because she’d hate him for it. But even then, it’s hard to put into words how he felt, and it’s hard for her to understand.

When it’s over, she cleans the wounds on his hands, staring at the ink on his skin with curiosity.

He doesn’t know what to say to her.

It feels like maybe he’s broken something, by showing this to her, by smiling about this change, but he doesn’t know how else to react, because something in the whole situation just makes him feel soft and warm and surrounded by comfort.

He thinks she notices it, and that’s why she backs away.

“Do you like your hair short?” she asks, finally, after she’s bandages his wounds.

“I don’t know yet,” he says. “Could you… help me cut it?”

At that, she smiles, and brings him by an open window for better light. She shows him her mirror again, and he marvels at the way his hair seems to shimmer under the sunlight.

She places the mirror in front of him, takes a sharp pair of scissors, and begins to cut off the uneven strands.

“Are you happy?” she asks. Her face is obscured in the mirror. But she doesn’t sound like she’s attacking him.

Kenma would slump in his seat if it weren’t for her hands on his hair. He doesn’t know how to apologize to her for this. He doesn’t know how she manages to deal with all of this.

“I think I’m getting there,” he says.

“Thank you for being honest,” she tells him, and keeps snipping away.

When she’s done, she cleans up the fallen hair, and pats his shoulder.

“Ayako and Kageyama will be over in about an hour,” she says, coping surprisingly well. “Would you like to help out in the kitchen?”

Kenma watches as she sweeps the hair away, and watches her move to the kitchen, and makes a decision.

“Do you want to ask about the vine?” he suggests. She keeps looking at it when she thinks she won’t notice.

“I do,” she says, “but do you have any answers?”

“I have some ideas,” he says, thinking about the dream demon, “but I haven’t figured it out yet.”

“Then tell me when you figure it out,” she says. “About the vine. And about the hair, too.”

“The hair is a mystery,” Kenma says. “But I like it.”

“It’s pretty,” his mother says. “If you like it, then it must be the prettiest, right?”

Kenma stares at his arm, and slowly waves his hand over the vine. The ink shifts and then fades into skin. “I guess so,” he says.

He follows her into the kitchen, and does the same movement. “I found something,” he says, displaying how the vine reappears. He then makes it disappear again.

“That’s nice,” his mother says.

“It is what it is,” Kenma says. “But I don’t know what it does.”

She sighs. “Listen…” she says. “I don’t know much about this situation.”

“Neither do I.”

“But you know more,” she responds. “And I don’t understand it, but you should accept it as the gift you think it is. The most important thing right now is what it means to _you_.”

“Gift?”

She smiles. “You look at it like it is something precious. Of course it is a gift.”

He offers her a small smile. “I don’t know how happy you’d be with me if I told you what I know.”

She ruffles his hair. “Tell me when you’re confident, and I can’t promise I’ll understand everything, but I’ll try to help.”

“You’re the best,” he says.

She shrugs. “I just am.”

He twirls a strand of hair around his finger. “I don’t even know who this gift is from,” he says. “Not really.”

“It doesn’t matter for now,” she tells him. “Just enjoy it. It’s your birthday, isn’t it? Good things should happen then, so they did.”

Kenma smiles. “I guess that’s good enough,” he says.

He helps her with cooking and baking, and their conversations float in and out, consisting mostly of scattered remarks about his mother’s trips. The time flies by, and Kenma takes the silence in between conversations to properly think about yesterday. It is easy to remember the feelings that had crawled up in him and exploded, but he thinks about the things before that, like Ukai and Suga.

He wants to have a discussion with Suga again, because Suga says things that are just a little different, and if Kenma really thinks about them, he knows that he’ll come across something resembling a breakthrough. He’s lost in thought about potion making when he hears knocking on the door, and his mother sends him away with a smile. The tension in her seems to have eased, and Kenma smiles back at her before leaving her to finish up.

He can’t stop smiling when he opens the door, and he doesn’t know why. But today makes him feel a little special.

“Hey!” Ayako says, and her eyes widen when she sees him, but he presses a finger to his lips and she smiles brightly, staying quiet.

In turn, she mimes sealing her lips shut, and winks.

Kageyama is carrying a huge stack of books, and they tower over his face. Ayako glides into his house, making a beeline for the kitchen, while Kageyama staggers forward.

Kenma closes the door behind him. Now it is just them in the entryway.

“Kenma,” Kageyama gasps. “Please—help.”

He reaches for the top three and carefully slides them into his arms. They’re heavy, but not nearly as bad as Kageyama’s pile of books.

“Thank you,” Kageyama says, out of breath, and then he meets his eyes.

“Hey,” Kenma says. He smiles.

The books slip out of Kageyama’s hands and hit the ground.

Kageyama hisses in pain as one smashes against his foot, and he grabs it in pain, hopping around until the initial hurt seems to have subsided.

“Are you okay?” Kenma asks, wincing at the expression on Kageyama’s face, which is twisted with pain and simultaneously shocked. 

Kageyama whips towards him, face red, and Kenma’s not sure if it’s due to embarrassment, surprise, or exhaustion. “You!” he says, pointing towards him. “Gold hair! _Gold_ hair! How—” He breaks off mid-sentence, glaring at his hurt foot, probably biting back a string of curses.

“You okay?” Kenma asks.

“Fine,” Kageyama mutters through gritted teeth. “Just hurts at first. Nothing broken.”

“That’s good.”

“Good?” Kageyama cries. “ _Good_?” He seems at a loss for words.

“Yeah…” Kenma says, prompting him to go on.

“Why do you have gold hair?” Kageyama shouts. “It’s not even fake gold hair! It’s not even dye! _How_?”

“I woke up like this,” Kenma says, deadpan, and an indignant shriek rises from Kageyama’s mouth before he devolves into a slew of indecipherable words.

“You can’t be joking,” he says after he’s calmed down from his outburst, quiet in his disbelief.

“Yeah, it’s not a joke,” Kenma says. “I really did wake up like this.”

Kageyama keeps staring at his hair.

“Do you… want to touch it?” Kenma asks.

Slowly, Kageyama nods.

Kenma smiles. “We can pick these books up, first,” he says, and the two of them stack Kageyama’s dropped books to the side.

“You’re sure I can touch it?” Kageyama says, and Kenma recognizes the tone of his voice as awe.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s—I think it’s cool.”

“It fits you,” Kageyama says, running his fingers through a strand of Kenma’s hair. “But it’s so short is comparison to before.”

“That’s true,” Kenma says. His hair as it is reaches a little past the length of his chin.

“What are you going to do with it?” Kageyama asks.

Kenma blinks, taken aback. “…Nothing?”

“Yeah,” Kageyama says. “I guess that’s fair. Are you going to show Ukai? Just to take a look at it.”

“Maybe,” Kenma says. “Maybe not.”

“Secretive, aren’t you,” Kageyama comments, pulling back. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secrets.”

When Kenma looks into Kageyama’s eyes, he knows he’s not lying. He’s talking about much more than that.

Kenma guides Kageyama’s gaze towards the kitchen, where Ayako and Chinami are both laughing. “Later?” he offers.

“The whole truth,” Kageyama answers.

And they make a pact.

 

* * *

 

They settle down in the training room in Ayako’s house, like they always do, but there’s a nervous edge to it, and they can’t seem to stop trading glances, as if they are wondering which one will break the silence first.

Kenma wonders at which point he had gotten used to enigmatic mansion-like space confined within these walls. It’s a type of distortion etched into the fabric of the brick, and Ayako has stored magic within the dragon crystal chandelier and the center of the house, keeping it stable.

It is a luxury few can afford, and one that few know about. Kageyama and Kenma wander the halls sometimes, but they mostly find themselves in a few rooms, enjoying the comfort of having other people close. When Kageyama had asked why she kept all these rooms, she’d just smiled and said it was a reminder.

Kenma wonders about that, sometimes. Opulence is a reminder of success, of worth, but Ayako seems to have that in spades. What she does not have is a normal life, and maybe the endless rooms serve as a reminder of that. But the answer leaves him dissatisfied. Ayako has always been hard to pin down, and it’s a challenge that both frustrates and excites him.

“Do you want to move?” Kageyama asks, after a long silence. Kenma looks around. White, pristine walls. It is devoid of anything except for them. For magic, it is useful, because everything is isolated, but in the midst of discussion it feels like a damper.

“Yeah,” Kenma says, “to where?”

“Your choice,” Kageyama says, mouth twisted into a half-frown. “It’s going to be a long conversation, right?”

“Yeah,” Kenma says.

“Then you choose,” Kageyama says. “I think you’ll know what I’m about to do best, anyway.”

“How about…” Kenma says, trailing off to think. “You paint, and I’ll talk?”

“I am in a painting mood,” Kageyama says amicably. “Can I paint you?”

Kenma wrinkles his nose. “Depends on how much space I take.”

“Nothing life-size,” Kageyama assures. “A little sort of painting.”

Kenma tries to stare threateningly at Kageyama. “You better not be tricking me,” he says.

Kageyama smiles. “I won’t, trust me.”

“Lead the way,” Kenma says.

“I—I thought you were choosing the room?”

Kenma levels a look at him. “You have the sort of smile that means you’re going to paint a mural.”

Kageyama pointedly does not make eye contact. He’s easy to read, though.

“I guess it’s a bit redundant…” he mutters, and Kenma frowns.

“No, I like your paintings,” Kenma says. “I like that you like doing them, too.”

Kageyama shrugs. “I already got you a birthday gift, so I can basically do whatever I want, right?”

“Uh, sure,” Kenma says with a laugh. “Please treat me kindly for the rest of the day, though.”

“Nope!” Kageyama declares. “We’re friends. You told me I’m supposed to yell at you if you do stupid things, and I’m guessing you’ve done something very, very stupid.”

“What—”

“You didn’t tell me about it,” Kageyama says, “and not just this, but apparently a lot of things, so I am now allowed to insult you.”

“It’s… complicated.” Kenma says, but the explanation feels weak.

“I might not understand,” Kageyama says, “but I’ll listen?” He turns towards Kenma. “And isn’t that good enough?”

“It is,” Kenma says. He sighs. “But I don’t like to not understand things.”

“It’s because you’re a sucker for mystery,” Kageyama explains, as if he is not going through the deepest aspects of Kenma’s character. “And you like puzzles. So when you can’t figure something out, even if you keep telling yourself you don’t want to know anything more, you do.”

“You think so?” Kenma asks. He doesn’t feel like that.

“Take, for example, cursebreaking,” Kageyama says. “You shut me down even faster once I told you what it was, like you were… interested in it. Am I wrong?”

Kenma flushes out of sheer embarrassment. “I hate you so much,” he grumbles.

“Because I’m right?”

“Because you’re right,” he admits, after a pause. “It’s—I won’t try out cursebreaking for a while,” he says. “I… have something that’s been preoccupying me for a while.”

“Is it the nightmares you won’t talk about?” Kageyama asks.

Kenma freezes. Then he lets out a soft laugh. “You know too much.”

“I know too little,” Kageyama says. “I think you just don’t expect people to notice things that are obvious.”

“It’s more like…” Kenma begins, “It’s more like it’s been obviously there for me, so it just feels like it passes by.”

“But… you don’t have nightmares all the time, right?” Kageyama questions. “I don’t think you do, at least.”

Kenma smiles. “I said I would explain,” he says, and then Kageyama is leading him into a room, already prepped with paints. 

“Anticipating this?” Kenma asks.

“Oh, this was for later,” Kageyama says. “But I’m glad I set it up in preparation.”

Kenma shrugs, and takes a seat, a respectable distance from the wall.

“So when are you going to start your grand tale?” Kageyama asks, after a moment of silence.

“I’m waiting until you start sketching,” Kenma says.

“And I’m waiting until you tell your story, so I have something to sketch,” Kageyama says.

“What, so you can sketch a portrait of my misery?” Kenma fires back.

Kageyama frowns. “You’re not miserable… _all_ the time.”

“Used to be,” Kenma says.

“Alright then,” Kageyama says, voice turning gentle. “I will listen for a bit, and I won’t interrupt, and then I will sketch, and whatever the finished result is, it will not be sad. Okay?”

“And that’s a promise?” Kenma asks. He feels so small, so irritable, at just having the entirety of his old memories flood back to him.

“It is,” Kageyama says. “It might be confusing, or wild, or peaceful, but it won’t be sad.” He smiles. “I’m… pretty sure the ending of your story won’t be sad, either.”

Kenma exhales. “You’re right,” he says. He tries to bring the euphoria from the morning back into him, and he feels calmer almost instantly. “It’s just a long story. It’s tiring, and confusing, and sad, but it’s not all awful.”

He smiles. “I mean, you were there.”

Kageyama smiles and it is here that Kenma is reminded that for all his intimidating nature, Kageyama at his best is awkward, gentle, competitive, and unfailingly kind towards his friends.

Kenma takes in a deep breath. “So often do I forget what real demons look like,” he says. “Because… the ones in legends? They are not the ones I see.”

He makes eye contact with Kageyama. “You know what they are like, right? Demons and gods.”

“I know a little bit,” Kageyama says. “I know that lesser demons are not demons at all, but pieces of a fragmented and ugly spirit, and I know the demons that we take down live in forests rather than the city.”

“That’s good,” Kenma says. “You can feel it, right? The split between them?”

“I can,” Kageyama says, and then his brows furrow. “You can too?”

Kenma nods, and Kageyama looks like he’s about to start talking a hundred words a minute, but bites back his comments. “I… don’t know much about that,” he admits. “My mother stopped talking about demons when I was six.”

“Three years before we met,” Kageyama murmurs.

“And,” Kenma says, “I think half of that stuff is like… legends, you know? Who’s to say what the true demons are and what they aren’t. We use the same word for so many... but it's all different. Ayako's are different, and ours are different. But I'll use the word demon, I guess. I don't know how to use anything else for it."

"Ugh," Kageyama says. "Just tell me everything. I'll get it then."

“When I was six,” Kenma says, “I met a demon in my dreams.”

At this, Kageyama nods, most likely thinking about the common demons that lurk in dreams, aching to steal pieces of a soul through nightmares. While Kenma knows that vague information, he has not read much about them, because they have always been an entity too strange to understand. Or perhaps he was just scared of the truth, and too scared to ask.

“And… before the nightmares,” Kenma says, “Before those demons, before all of that, I met someone else.”

“Someone else?” Kageyama asks.

“He is a demon,” Kenma says, “but he takes the form of a human, and he’s grown older like a human, and even though he has all these… powers, I feel a sort of split. He feels different, but not like a lesser demon does.”

“You are confused by him,” Kageyama says. “Aren’t you?”

Kenma nods. “I am.” He says, “Here, I’ll start from the beginning?”

“Sure,” Kageyama says. “Take you time. It looks like it’s hard to say.”

“The way I understand things has changed, now,” Kenma says. “There are things I’m saying now that I don’t think I’ve ever articulated to myself, information I’ve refused to actually piece together and understand.”

“You’re afraid, like me,” Kageyama says. “Of knowing, because what happens then?”

“And it seems like we should have a conversation, too,” Kenma says.

“It’s a little thing,” Kageyama says, waving it off. “This is about you.”

Kenma eyes him with suspicion. “Later, though?”

Kageyama groans. “Later,” he promises. “Can we please focus on the now? I can’t sit still here forever.”

Kenma grins. “You said you’d listen.”

“You,” Kageyama says, pointing at him with indignation, “are making this longer on purpose, and I am trying not to put pressure on you.”

Kenma glances upwards at his hair, and reminds himself that the end he’s reached is at a happier point. A point where he has broken old promises, and now he has nothing to stop him from truly understanding his own mysteries. His insignificance has not faded. But with the attention Kageyama gives him, it makes Kenma think that maybe parts of him are worth solving.

“Okay,” he says, “so I was six, and I met him in a dream.”

And he tells Kageyama everything.

 

* * *

 

“You’re crazy,” Kageyama says, when he’s finished. “None of that explains why your hair is gold now.”

“Because I don’t know,” Kenma explains, exasperated. “So I’m letting it be.”

“Be that way, then,” Kageyama mutters. “See if I care when it starts malfunctioning, or whatever.”

“Cool,” Kenma says. “I’m dehydrated. I’m going to get a glass of water.”

Kageyama bounces up to his side as he makes his way to where Ayako keeps her jugs off water.

“So you can sense magic,” Kageyama hisses, “and you never _told_ me?”

Kenma sighs. “I would yell at you for ignoring the rest of literally everything I said, but yes.”

“Okay, but how specific is it?” Kageyama asks. “I feel like I should know this.” He pauses. “Sorry, you just—you never told me this? I’m not even mad, but—”

“But what?”

“You keep saying you can’t do magic, but you’re _sensitive_ to it, whatever that means. So… magical things are an option for you.”

“And?”

Kageyama smiles. “I’m talking cursebreaking.”

“Again?”

“Yeah—just, think about it again, okay? Like I’m not going to talk about it anymore because I have so many questions.”

“Fire away,” Kenma answers. “I’ll answer because I feel guilty about lying.”

Kageyama scoffs. “As if. You have zero remorse. You expect me to feel happy about being the only one who knows this.”

Kenma smiles, and they pass by Ayako, who’s already handing a glass of water to Kenma. He downs it quickly, savoring the cold feeling on his throat, and keeps walking.

Lowering his voice to a whisper as he glances back in Ayako’s direction, Kageyama asks, “So, you wanted him to leave you alone, and now that he did, you don’t want him to leave you alone?”

Kenma flushes. “Well, that just sounds stupid.”

“Because it is,” Kageyama says.

“It’s complicated.”

Kageyama raises an eyebrow. “Complicated situations don’t need complicated answers.”

He gets a flat stare in response. “Why do you say things like these sometimes?”

“What things?”

“Oh, you know,” Kenma says, gesturing at Kageyama’s face, “all these words of wisdom. You’re so dumb sometimes. Why do you get to go say these kinds of things if you’re an idiot half the time?”

Kageyama scowls. “Just listen to me,” he huffs. “Maybe you’re the idiot. Because, you know, you could just _tell me_.”

“Maybe I _am_ the idiot,” Kenma mumbles. He takes in a deep breath, straightens up, and looks at Kageyama. “Okay,” he says. “Now what do I do?”

“Follow your own advice,” Kageyama says, and smiles. “Since this dream demon person can’t place a restraining order on you, you can _definitely_ talk to him.”

“I would,” Kenma grumbles, “If I could find him.”

“He’ll probably come chasing after you,” Kageyama says.

There’s a long pause.

“I don’t think he likes me very much,” Kenma says.

Kageyama shrugs. “Maybe not yet.”

He stands there for a minute and lets that sink in. He sighs. “My head’s all muddled,” he says.

And it’s true. There’s this haze in his mind whenever he tries to think of the dream demon. He hasn’t seen the dream demon clearly in years, and now he can’t understand if he’s supposed to still hate him or not. All the fear and the anger seems to have faded into numbness. The only thing he really can feel, anymore, is that pocket of joy, when he’d seen his hair again.

And that was it. So little, and yet so much.

“Talk to me about anything else,” he says. “I need to think.”

“Your image change is still giving me whiplash,” Kageyama says. “Can I paint it?”

Kenma’s mouth curves into a half smile. “You said you’d make it happy.”

“Aren’t you happy, now?” Kageyama asks. “That you have this pretty hair. That you talked to me.”

Kenma bites his lip. “It still feels like there’s something missing.”

“You’ll find it,” Kageyama says. “You always seem to figure things out.”

He shakes his head. “I think I figure things out a little too late.”

Kageyama hums aimlessly and starts pushing him back towards the room they left.

When they arrive, Kenma flops down on the floor and closes his eyes. 

His mind just doesn’t seem to be working right. Looking back on everything that’s happened, the dream demon should have been a series of strange events. It is easy to remember the nightmares, and to remember the pain. It evokes in him a strange sort of ghostly terror when he remembers. But after that, he remembers little and inconsequential things. The warmth in his hand, ink on his skin like a precious thing, and lightning at his fingertips. It’s this that he looks at now.

The leaves are an almost dull sort of gold, but it is comforting. It feels like there’s someone near him. He lets the warmth envelop him and tries to understand how it makes him feel, but comes up empty.

There’s just so many things wrong about this. He feels like in another life, the dream demon would just be another horror story.

But he’s not. Instead, he’s almost charming, awkward, and when Kenma had first met him, all he’d looked like was a scared boy. And Kenma had been scared too, even though he had tried to deny it. But he hadn’t been scared at first. Not of him.

_And his wings are pretty_ , Kenma thinks, and flushes. He wonders why it is so easy to give his compliments.

It’s easy to think things about this dream demon. But it is hard to know him. Kageyama is right; Kenma needs to talk to him. For answers, for closure, maybe just to meet him again. It’s not enough to see him, or to hear his voice, or to understand some meaningless thing. He wants something better than that.

“Do you think it’s possible to have two first meetings?” he asks.

“Two first meetings?” Kageyama repeats, not really paying attention. “Not really. Once you’ve met a person, you can’t really meet them again, can you?”

“I don’t know,” Kenma says. “What if things change so much that it is different? What if the first time, you were just looking past them, and not meeting them at all?”

“Well,” Kageyama drawls, “if we’re getting all intellectual—”

“Shut up,” Kenma says. “You get it, right?”

Kageyama shrugs. “I guess you could think about it that way,” he says. “But first impressions aren’t anything. We put way too much weight on them.”

“Now you’re the one getting philosophical!” Kenma cries.

“I don’t know what that word means!”

Kenma huffs. “I—” He sighs. “I’m just so unsure of what to do.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Kageyama says. “You’re confused. Just let yourself be confused, then.”

“Cool,” Kenma says, not convinced at all, and then he adds, “I like the painting this time.”

He receives a bright grin. “Not even half done,” Kageyama says.

“Well, it’ll be finished eventually,” Kenma says. “I like it so far.”

“Sure,” Kageyama says. “It’s literally an empty sky, but sure.”

“I like the open space,” Kenma defends. “It’s peaceful.”

Kageyama smiles. Then he flops down on the ground, muttering a quick succession of words to clean up. “The one thing I don’t get,” Kageyama says, slowly, “is why your hair is gold _now_.”

“Because… I wanted it to be?” Kenma says. “I’m not really so sure myself.”

“But you’re happy about it?” Kageyama asks. “Not even just mildly excited, but like, really happy?”

Kenma turns towards him and smiles. “I’m happy,” he confirms. “Really, truly, with as much emphasis as you want to add.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama says, and adds, “Your smile looks nicer than usual.”

“What? Is it not usually nice?”

“No, it’s nice,” Kageyama says. “It’s just… better.”

“Well, yeah,” Kenma says. “I _feel_ better.”

He doesn’t know why Kageyama’s smile is so bright, after that.

 

* * *

 

Things turn sour quickly.

Not Kenma himself. He is doing remarkably well. Kageyama pesters him almost daily about cursebreaking, and Kenma ignores him. Instead, he works on magical symbols, earns about flowers, and waits.

As if. Kenma is buzzing with insecurity and impatience, and faced with insufferable staring. People are still looking at him, just differently.

He cannot hate the hair, though. Does not even know if such a thing is possible. The stares that follow him every way he goes, though warped, still make him sick to his stomach. But it feels as if something is protecting him.

And it is, he thinks, curling his hands into fists, feeling the warmth spilling over through his veins.

He bites his lip and keeps his head down, shuffling through the streets and making as little eye contact as possible.

“Hey, are you—”

He pushes past them and finds his way into Ukai’s shops after a couple of harrowing almost conversations.

Suga spots him as he walks in, and his eyes glitter in a sort of excited, curious way. Kenma presses a finger to his lips.

Suga winks. “Ukai, Kenma’s here!” he says.

There’s unintelligible grumbling from the back before Ukai steps out, and then freezes as he sees Kenma.

“What’s this?” he asks a few seconds later, quickly recovering from his shock. “Paint?”

“No, it’s real,” Kenma says. “Kageyama would kill me if it was paint. It would damage the hair.”

“Kid, you’ve got to be joking,” Ukai says.

Kenma smiles. “I don’t tell jokes often.”

Ukai sighs, already over it. “Well, it certainly doesn’t look dangerous, so I guess I don’t have to worry about it.” Kenma supposes that being a world-class demon hunter sucks some of the magic out of things.

He points at Sugawara. “Don’t let this kid bombard you with questions.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything!” Sugawara protests.

“Sure,” Ukai drawls. “Well, just to explain, his hair is gold now.”

“I can _see_ that!”

Ukai rolls his eyes, and grudgingly says, “You have 5 seconds to ask a question.”

Suga immediately turns to face Kenma. “How’d it happen?” he asks, eyes shining.

Kenma shrugs. “I woke up. And there it was.”

“That’s cool,” Suga says. 

“Five seconds are over,” Ukai says. “Well, you have any deliveries?”

Kenma holds up the bag he’s carrying. “Right here.”

Ukai takes it from him with a grin. “Well, run off now.”

“Yeah,” Kenma says, “I’ll do that.”

He looks at Suga and pauses. “We can… talk later?”

Suga nods. “I won’t ask about your hair,” he promises. “Just about flowers.” 

_Ah_ , Kenma thinks, _he’s nice. Has been that way all along._

He walks out into the street, and whispers follow him by the horde, running and tripping over each other into a garbled mess that speaks half of awe and half of terror.

This time, Kenma shuts them out, retreating into his headspace by humming a song he remembers. The whispers slowly fade out of his mind, and he makes his way to the library. There may or may not be a crowd following him. Kenma ignores it.

He looks up just in time to see a flash of orange jump over a fence and skid to a halt on the road in front of him.

The boy looks up at him, and recognition sparks in his eyes. “It’s you! From the other day!” he says, and then hurriedly bows. “Thank you so much.”

Kenma is taken aback. “...It wasn’t a problem,” he says, after a moment. “How are you?”

The boy’s face visibly darkens, presumably recalling bad memories, but he smiles. “I’m doing fine.”

“You headed somewhere?” Kenma asks, politely avoiding the topic.

The boy grins. “Yeah! The library!” He pauses, and his face colors. “Except, um… I don’t know where it is.”

“I could… take you there,” he offers.

“Really? Great!”

Kenma nods stiffly, and keeps walking. He’s never really walked with anyone except for his mother, Kageyama, and Ayako, and they’re basically like family. With the way Ayako and his mother keep looking at each other when they think Kenma’s not, they might really be family anyways.

“Oh yeah!” the boy says. “Your hair changed!”

Kenma raises an eyebrow. “And you just noticed?”

The boy laughs. “I just remembered,” he says. “I’m a little all over the place.”

Kenma laughs. _That’s obvious_ , he thinks. The boy’s hair is wild and spiky, and the bag he has is obviously messy, stripes of color and dust covering the leather, bits and pieces of whatever’s inside jutting out.

“Also, my name is Hinata Shouyou,” the boy adds, after a moment of silence.

“I’m Kenma,” he says, uneasy for a moment. He’s _definitely_ heard the name Hinata before— _oh_.

“Are you… um, do you know someone named Kageyama, by any chance?”

Hinata scowls. “You know him? What a jerk!”

Kenma frowns. “Kageyama’s a good person,” he defends. “You just don’t know him.”

In response, Hinata huffs, unconvinced. “He just acts like he’s so much better than me! We’re even the same age!”

Kenma laughs. “You, uh, look a lot younger,” he says. “And Kageyama is probably just trying to help.”

“I guess…” Hinata says slowly. “I mean, you’re friends with him, right? And you seem okay.”

Kenma smiles. “Kageyama is a good person,” he says. “He’s just hopelessly awkward.”

Hinata bites his lips. “He did give me flowers,” he says, after a moment. “He didn’t explain why, but the flowers were nice.”

“Oh, so he gave them to you,” Kenma says. “That’s good. They were pretty, weren’t they?”

“They were really pretty!” Hinata agrees. “He started talking all about my potential after he gave them to me, though, and got really angry when I just stopped listening to him.”

Kenma holds down a laugh. “That was… probably, he was offering to teach you magic,” he says.

Hinata is indignant. “I can learn that just fine without his dumb help!” he shouts, and Kenma winces.

“Yeah,” he says, suddenly angry, “but Kageyama will help you do at least twice as fast, and he’ll actually understand your magic, unlike every magic book in the world, unlike every single person who told you that you didn’t have magical potential. So you could do that, or you could actually take the initiative, and learn magic, or decide not to.” He turns towards Hinata, stopping him in his tracks. “You do not have to like magic, and you do not have to do it,” he says evenly, “but you have the chance, and if you want to, you should do it the right way.”

Hinata swallows and nods. “So,” he says, as they resume walking, “The library. How big is it?”

“It’s big enough,” Kenma says. “Ukai’s presence here sort of makes this place a hotspot for some people who want to learn magic, and because of that, it has a slightly better stock in that area.”

“Do you study magic?” Hinata asks, subdued. 

Kenma feels a little bad about scaring him like that, but he feels strangely satisfied about the effect it had, too.

“I do,” he says. “I can’t do it, though.”

“Huh,” Hinata says.

A minute later, they have reached the entrance. Kenma smiles upon seeing the familiar doors. “What were you going to search for, anyways?”

“I was… um, going to look up flower meanings,” Hinata mumbles, very quiet and very fast.

Kenma blinks. “You could have… just asked me? I made that bouquet.” 

Hinata’s eyes widen. “You did?”

He nods. “The yellow poppies are for wealth and success, and the marigolds mean the warmth of the sun. But really, the colors just looked nice, and Kageyama mentioned that your aura felt like fire.”

At that, Hinata’s eyes almost glitter, and Kenma can feel it—raw energy, sparking off him in a burst of power.

He tilts his head. “We need to get you a wand,” he says.

Hinata frowns. “Who’s we?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Kenma says. “Or Kageyama will tell you later, I guess. I just want to find some books right now.”

Hinata nods, twiddling his thumbs. “Could you…” he mumbles, probably to himself.

“What?”

“Could you, uh, give me directions back?” Hinata asks, blushing. “I don’t know where to go.”

Kenma points him back to the center square and hopes for good fortune as Hinata runs off.

He sighs, prays for Kageyama’s social skills, and walks into the library.

 

* * *

 

 

He makes a beeline for the magic section. This is not because he particularly needs magic books. What Kageyama has at his house is always more than enough and usually better. Kenma sighs and sweeps through the list until he finds the dreams section.

_Communicating With Your Dreams: An Analysis—_

_No_ , he decides, almost instinctively. Dream interpretation is messy and almost always incorrect.

_Dreamlike Mist: The Lady Along—_

_No_.

He searches through the adjacent books, finds nothing and sighs. He moves to the section with normal information about dreams, just to check. He sweeps over the modest collection of books until he manages to pluck out a tattered volume about lucid dreaming. It seems like the closest he can get to any approximation of a solution, even though Kenma seems to be able to dream like that by accident, anyways. Contrary to what Kageyama says, Kenma does not enjoy being confused. He can appreciate Kageyama’s advice, but he does not have to follow it.

On his way to the counter, he bumps into someone. It’s a face he doesn’t recognize, which is extremely common. Most faces blend into the crowd for him, which Kenma supposes is a blessing. Knowing that someone, or more accurately, large amounts of singular people despise him hurts a lot more than waving off a faceless crowd and being pleasantly surprised by a few individuals.

“Your hair,” is the first thing they say, and Kenma is instantly irritated. _Why don’t people have better manners?_ he thinks.

“It sure is my hair,” he replies dryly.

“No—I meant—why is it that color?”

Kenma shrugs. “Because it’s my hair, and it’s that color.”

The person grows more and more flustered. “You definitely weren’t like this before,” they say.

“No?” Kenma says with a smile, trying not to betray his annoyance. “What was I like, then?”

“Gloomy,” they reply, no hesitation whatsoever. At least they are honest.

“How’d you get your hair like that, anyways?”

Kenma frowns. _I’ll never see this person again_ , he thinks. _I don’t want to bother explaining anything to them._

“Oh, you know,” he says, lying as obviously as he can, “I can just turn things to gold nowadays.” He smiles and brushes past them. _How easily horrified things turn_ , he thinks. Hopefully everyone else will soon realize he’s not planning on answering anything seriously. He doesn’t even like jokes, but—

Did anyone really think Kenma would want to do anything but laugh at them? He’s not even angry, but he’s tired and annoyed and has had enough of dealing with people.

He walks up to the counter and places the book there. _Fear, awe_ , he muses, _all the same. For me as well,_ he mentally adds, thinking about the dream demon.

“Ah—Kenma?” The librarian pauses. “You’re still Kenma, right?”

_Now here’s someone who doesn’t ask more than he needs to know_ , Kenma thinks. The librarian right now is a short boy named Yaku, who has to drag around a stool almost constantly. It really doesn’t match the sprawling and grand structure of the library, but Kenma supposes that Yaku’s efficiency with shelving and his breadth of knowledge more than make up for it.

“It’s me,” he says, pulling out a piece of paper as verification. “In the flesh, and all that.”

“Well, you look different,” Yaku says, and does not pry. It is possibly the best reaction Kenma has gotten.

“It’d be nice if people stopped pestering me about it, though,” Kenma says.

Yaku frowns. “That would be awful,” he says. “Do people stop you on the street?”

“Not yet,” Kenma says with a sigh. “They just—stare.”

“Not much different from usual,” Yaku says.

“So you… knew?” Kenma says, after a lengthy pause.

Yaku furrows his brows. “Knew about what?”

“That I was…” He gestures awkwardly to himself. “You know. Cursed.”

Yaku scowls. “I knew they were lying,” he grumbles. “People. You can never trust them. They enjoy being awful to each other, apparently.”

“That’s why I’m here most of the time,” Kenma says. “It’s quiet.”

Yaku smiles. “That’s why I’m here,” he says. “I don’t like people.”

“Agreed,” Kenma says, and then adds, “I guess you’re not bad, though.”

He grins. “You’re not so bad yourself. It’s the… collective that I hate.”

“I get it,” Kenma says, with a sigh of resignation. “I really get that.”

Spirits lightened, Kenma walks out of the library, book in hand.

No one approaches him on the way home, and things are almost fine.

 

* * *

 

 

A week later, Kenma heads back to the library. He’d just dragged Hinata off to Kageyama’s house, and left from there. He hopes it works out. Worst comes to worst, Ayako and his mother can intervene and make them painfully talk things out together.

Kenma bets on them both being too terrified of that happening to listen to each other.

_I make good plans_ , he thinks, as he bumps into someone, again. Kenma always wonders why that happens. It’s not like he doesn’t watch where he’s going. At this point, it feels like people are trying to run into him.

“Ah!” the person says, stiff. She twirls her hair around, messing with the curls. “You’re Kenma.”

He nods.

She smiles. “I’ve heard all about you,” she says, and dread pools in his stomach. “Great,” he says, and tries to move past her, but she blocks his path.

“It must have been coincidence that we rain into each other like this!” she exclaims, clearly lying.

Kenma feels like he’s going to be sick.

“Won’t you tell me how you do your magic?” she asks, leaning far too close into his personal space.

Kenma steps back. The ugly feelings collecting in his chest feel different and surprised, but they are no less ugly.

“Why?” he asks, fearing the answer.

“Oh, you must know,” the girl says. “We all know you’re magical, Kenma.”

“I don’t think I understand,” Kenma says, and he doesn’t want to start a confrontation, but he quietly adds, “And I thought my so-called powers were demonic.”

She shrugs. “A mistake?” she says, like she and everybody she talks to haven’t been responsible for years’ worth of trauma.

He bites his tongue and tries to channel his hatred into the ground, where it can fester and swallow everyone up years later.

“Anyways,” she continues, breezing past his obvious discomfort, “tell me your secrets.”

He glares at her, and shoves past her. “No,” he says. “Leave me alone.”

His mouth feels bitter. Everyone is staring at him, only now they aren’t drawing away. They’re drawing close.

Kenma grips the book tighter, and casts a furious look at the crowd. “Don’t follow me,” he growls, and then books it.

_People_ , he thinks, disgusted. _You can never trust them._

 

* * *

 

 

He slams his free hand on the counter and growls, careful to not damage the book in his other hand.

Yaku looks at him with concern. He’d jumped as soon as Kenma had barreled into the library, and now, he is visibly on edge.

“People,” Kenma says through gritted teeth, “are the worst.”

Yaku frowns at him. “Did something specific happen?”

“Someone tried to pull me over because they thought I—me, actually _me_ —could do what happened to my hair to them. They were being all nice about it, but they wouldn’t let me go—”

He pauses to catch his breath.

“So you ran all the way here,” Yaku observes, and then sighs. “I mean, if you want a full explanation, I could give you one.”

Kenma slowly raises his head and slides the book over on the counter. “Sure,” he says, staring up at Yaku and trying to convey how dead to the world he is.

Yaku laughs. “So they think you’ve been touched by an angel,” he says.

Kenma glares at him. “That’s not funny.”

“No,” Yaku agrees, “but it’s true.”

Kenma sighs. “So they think I have a—what, an angelic gift?”

“Yep,” Yaku confirms.

“The irony,” Kenma mutters. “If anything, I have a demonic gift.”

“Don’t tell me you buy into those rumors about yourself,” Yaku scoffs.

Kenma smiles. “Don’t tell me you think I don’t know anything about demons.”

A silent understanding passes between them.

“So they think you can make things golden,” Yaku says, “because you were blessed, all along.”

Cold realization sets in. Kenma shivers. “They want the power to turn things gold,” he says.

Yaku nods. “It’s buffoonery is what it is.”

Kenma shakes. “It’s greed and self-interest,” he corrects. “And isn’t that always what I’m involved with?”

Yaku frowns. “You sound defeatist,” he says.

Kenma sighs. “My life hasn’t exactly been wonderful, so this situation is just making me more aware of how much I hate it,” he says.

“That sucks.”

“Understatement much?”

Yaku shrugs. “Want to stay here until it blows over?”

“I’d hate to sound narcissistic,” Kenma says, “but they will certainly wait longer than that. I’d hate to bring people into the library, anyways.” He pauses. “How did you hear about this, anyways? It’s not even been that long.”

“Ah,” Yaku says dryly, “some people were talking even when they shouldn’t. I shut them up, and unfortunately had to hear what they were talking about before I shut them up.”

Kenma gives him a small smile. “Thanks for that, I guess.”

“Take a book before you leave?” Yaku offers.

“No, I’m good,” Kenma says. “I have something I want to do, anyways.”

“Wait!” Yaku calls, just before Kenma leaves. “He looks sheepish. “There’s something you should know,” he says.

“What is it?”

Yaku bites his lip. “This is just a rumor, but apparently you’ve walked around claiming that you turned your hair to gold. Someone then claimed to have witnessed an angel coming down from above and granting you with powers. I don’t think the second part is true, but…”

Yaku sighs. “You know yourself that they wouldn’t say anything good about you without some reason. Fear is powerful, and they wouldn’t get rid of it because of a suspicion. Did you maybe talk to… _anyone_? I feel like that alone would be enough, unfortunately.”

Kenma nods. He doesn’t say anything else. He’s too busy withering mentally and emotionally.

He exits the library, and winds his way through the edges of town, careful not to catch attention, probably walking a little too fast. Once at the hills, he takes off into a run.

He hopes that Kageyama and Hinata have finished up their conversation.

Kenma really needs to scream, and he doesn’t think he can wait.

 

* * *

 

 

“I was making a _joke_ ,” Kenma groans, head in his hands.

Kageyama pats him in the shoulder. “To be fair—”

“I know!” Kenma cries. “I don’t usually make jokes!”

Kageyama snorts. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he says.

“I’ll never make a joke again,” Kenma declares.

“You can’t do that!” Kageyama exclaims, suddenly horrified.

Kenma rises back up into a sitting position that doesn’t look like he’s caught up in a world-ending situation. “What’s done is done,” he sighs. “I guess I’ll never have to make jokes again in front of others.”

Very seriously, Kageyama replies, “Well, you can make jokes in front of me. I’ll understand.”

Kenma hides his smile. “Well, what am I gonna do now?” he asks.

“Scream,” Kageyama suggests.

He receives a pointed look for that comment. “Already done,” he says.

Kageyama grins. “Couldn’t hear it, though.”

Kenma nods. “That was the point. You even got to practice a silencing spell. I was just being kind.”

Kageyama laughs. “Okay,” he says. “Do you think someone will come take you?”

“What?”

“You know,” he says. “Like, steal you because they want your power.”

“It’s never happened to Ukai,” Kenma says slowly. “Why would it happen to me?”

“If you get kidnapped, I’ll find you,” Kageyama promises instead of explaining his thought process. 

Kenma laughs. “I doubt I’ll get kidnapped.”

Kageyama frowns. “I don’t know, Kenma,” he says, hesitant. “You were actually wrong this time about what was going to happen.”

He frowns. “Unfortunately.”

“Maybe if you just stay inside, everything will blow over,” Kageyama says. “Rumors die in—what number was it again—75 days, so you should be able to go out then.”

Kenma scowls. “No way,” he says. “I just started to like going outside. Nobody’s going to stop me from going where I want to anymore.”

“That’s brave,” Kageyama marvels. “And stupid. People are definitely going to chase you around.”

Kenma whips towards him. “Oh yeah? _You’re_ lecturing me on stupidity?”

Kageyama goes red in about a second. “I—”

“I’m going to do what I want,” Kenma says. “I don’t—I don’t _care_ what they think. If I’m going to stand out no matter _what_ I do, I might as well do it on my own terms.”

Kageyama smiles. “That’s sounds nice.”

Kenma sighs. “I hope it’s nice.”

 

* * *

 

“Kenma,” his mother calls, during the morning. “I have a job for you.” Her eyes are alight.

“Is it talking to Ayako again?” he asks.

She blushes. “Not that kind of job.”

“So, a real one?”

She nods. “Do you remember Shimizu? The daughter, at least,” his mother asks.

He frowns for a moment, wracking his brain. “Black hair and glasses?” he asks after a moment.

“That’s her.”

“We make deliveries to her pretty often,” Kenma says. “She’s alright, I guess. Quiet.”

“Her family keeps their cool,” his mother says with a laugh. “It’s why I like them.”

“They’ve never bothered me before,” he adds.

She smiles. “That’s good. Anyways, she is a potion-maker in training, currently.”

“I know that,” Kenma says. “We send herbs over, don’t we?”

“Why she doesn’t work with Ukai is a mystery to me,” his mother says with a sigh, “but yes. She requested you for your magical expertise.”

Kenma frowns. “How does she know about my magical expertise?”

“Don’t worry,” his mother says. “I asked. It’s not because she’s like one of those crazy people who think you can suddenly perform high-level permanent transmutations. It seems that Kageyama talks about you quite often.”

“Is that so,” Kenma says. “I’ll have to talk with him.”

“He’s doing it because he admires you, you know,” his mother says. “Don’t be too harsh on him.”

“I know,” Kenma says, lowering his gaze. “It just makes me embarrassed.”

She laughs. “That’s cute,” she says.

He can feel his face grow warm. “It’s _not_.”

“It’s cute!” she says again, and he makes a noise of embarrassment before nodding.

“So she wants help with potions?” he asks. “I don’t know much about them.”

His mother shakes her head. “No, she just needs your herb knowledge. But since apparently it has to do with magic, she thinks that you’d be able to connect the two.”

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll drop by today.”

“Great!” his mother says, clapping her hands. For some reason, she has not stopped smiling.

“Is there… something else you want to say?” he asks, after a long minute.

She smiles. “I just thought that this was a job only someone you could do,” she says. “Isn’t it nice, to be special like that?”

His mood sours. “Not really,” he mutters. “I don’t like being stared at. Besides, someone out there must have the same sort of skillset.”

“I think you’d be surprised,” his mother says, and her voice is gentle, but it sounds like a challenge.

“Alright, alright,” Kenma says. He bites his lip. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah?”

“How did… how did you and Ayako meet?”

She laughs. “I found her collapsed up on the hill. You were about 2 or 3 years old then. Your father had just died, and I was desperately trying to keep everything alive. And then we met. She helped me out so much, and she was so strong and wonderful… I admire her so much.” She breaks off her train of through with a nervous smile. “Do I talk too much about her?”

“Not at all,” Kenma says. “You should talk about her more, if anything.”

“Why is that?” his mother asks, like she already knows his answer.

“She makes you happy, right?” Kenma responds. “And you deserve to live your life in full color.”

“You’re making me blush,” Kenma’s mother says, rolling her eyes. “Don’t you think you’re young for love?”

Kenma shrugs. “Never thought about it.”

“That’s fine,” his mother says. “It’s fine if you think about it, too. But it’s not something you need, really.”

“I mean,” Kenma says. “I think it would just be nice. To be at peace. To be happy.” “That’s all I wish for from you,” his mother agrees. “I want you to feel like the floor won’t suddenly drop out from under you.”

She receives a wry smile in return. “I don’t know,” Kenma says. “Seems like it won’t happen anytime soon.”

They both sigh. 

An hour later, he makes his way down the mountain. Because Shimizu’s house is on the other side of town, no matter how he tries to plan out his route, he has to end up making his way through the main roads. Instead of carefully planning a route with the least amount of people, he decides just to forge ahead into the quickest path.

He is stopped, again, by someone on the street. They are much taller than him.

“ _What_ ,” he says flatly, glaring at them. It doesn’t seem to incite the same fear that it used to. Kenma sighs.

“I just—”

Kenma stares at them.

“Hair,” they squeak out. “Why is your hair shining?”

“It does what it wants,” Kenma says, and then he brushes past them, opening a map so that he can make his way towards a house on the outskirts.

Whispers follow him like the demons of his past, and an uncomfortable feeling claws up into his throat. He feels like he’s choking.

_Have you seen?_

_That’s him?_

_The one—the one touched by—_

_Yes! Him! He’s so quiet!_

_So secretive, he must be hiding something—_

_He can’t hide the gold, though, can he? Strings that slip through his fingers just seem to turn into gold! My daughter says she knows that her friend’s sister saw it in action, once!_

_Wow!_

_Selfish of him, don’t you—_

He shuts his eyes and continues walking.

At least no one tries to follow him anymore. He sighs in relief as the crows parts before him, with no one sticking uncomfortably close. Following Kenma never ends up well for the other party in question. In this case, Ayako had run into him, and before Kenma could get out a word, she’d drawn her sword and stabbed it in into the ground, raising an electric blue barrier around the two of them.

“Don’t follow him,” she’d said, and that had been that.

Kenma privately wonders if that had only made him seem more magical, considering the way Ayako casts her magic seems almost wandless. _Even if her actions inadvertently made it worse, it was still a good outcome_ , he decides.

His mother had been so charmed, and now no one dares to follow him. They still approach him, of course, but Kenma can run away and end conversations quickly enough. He despises the running part of it, though.

From all this misery, he at least hopes that things go well for his mother and Ayako. As well as they can go, at least, with Kenma and Kageyama’s lives messing with the both of them. He sighs.

He has been sighing a lot lately.

Kenma absentmindedly wants the sort of terrifying power that Ayako exudes. It is the type that makes her feel like an enigma, but the type that makes no one dare approach her. He wonders if it comes with being an adult; maybe when you grow up, people are treated more like experienced soldiers that will cut you if you get too close, instead of a miracle that you can reach out and grab for yourself.

He keeps walking. The whispers around him slowly fade. Shimizu’s house appears after a few minutes, on an empty street. He knocks on the door, and waits a minute before she cracks it open.

“Hey, Shimizu,” he says, as he steps into the entrance. “Where’s the girl you told me about?”

A girl slowly peeks out from the adjacent room. “Hi!” she says, voice a little too loud and a lot too nervous. “Hi! Um, I’m Yachi! Yachi Hitoka! It’s nice to meet you!”

“She’s…” Kenma says.

“Wonderful,” Shimizu says, with the kind of tone that allows no further questions. “I wanted to ask if you could teach her.”

Kenma frowns. “Teach her what?”

“She’s been doing… strange things,” Shimizu says with a sigh. “With the recipes. The thing is, the way she does them actually works. She just has this natural intuition for potions that makes me want to help her out.”

Yachi waves nervously from the side. “That’s me, I guess.”

“You should come over here,” Shimizu says with a wave. “You’re involved in this conversation, after all.”

Yachi is even shorter than Kenma, when they come face to face. She’s a bright, nervous ball of energy, but she stands in front of him without even trying to run away.

_I’m not scary anymore_ , he suddenly realizes, and the thought, in this context, is refreshing. Not even to people who don’t think I’ve been touched by an angel.

“So, you should probably be taught about the actual properties of each herb,” Kenma says, after a moment of contemplation. “It will help you experiment, if that’s what you do.”

“Ah, it’s not that I… particularly want to experiment,” Yachi says, shuffling her feet. “I, uh, just don’t know the recipe that well. So I end up messing things up a lot.”

“If you don’t know the recipe, but the things you make up turn out fine, then you should consider pursuing that line of thought,” Kenma says, trying to offer encouragement. “It’s what makes you unique, right?’

Shimizu nods and adds, “You have a talent for it, Yachi.”

She turns red. “Um, thank you!” she says.

Kenma sighs. “I’m sorry if I’m being a bother!” Yachi adds.

“No,” he explains. “It’s not you. I’m just—tired.”

“Would you like some tea?” Shimizu offers.

“Thank you for the offer,” Kenma says. “But I’m fine. How about we start going over common medicinal herbs?”

Shimizu and Yachi both smile.

“That would be great,” they both say, and Kenma pulls out a journal from his bag.

Shimizu guides him towards a sitting room.

“Yachi, take out a quill,” he orders. “This is not the type of information you memorize in a day. Nothing in potions is, from what I know about that field of study.”

She nods, determined.

_This is just what I need_ , Kenma thinks, as he launches into explanations of the most common potion ingredients he knows. _A distraction._

 

* * *

 

His distractions, like most of his efforts, turn out to be useless.

Kenma makes his way to Shimizu’s place again two days later, because Yachi seems like a bright learner but also an incredibly nervous individual, and both he and Shimizu think that some heavy guidance would be useful in the beginning stages of whatever arrangement they are trying to work out.

He “runs into” someone along the way. Someone barrels into him on the street, completely nonplussed, carefully brushing his hands against him, as if they could be turned gold on the spot. Kenma flinches; his body crackles with a shiver of electricity, and the boy jumps away, as if they’ve been shocked. He is nothing like the careless energy that Hinata carries—good-natured in essence—and the look in his eyes terrifies Kenma. It is a raw sort of hunger and the single-mindedness needed to raze a path and not look back.

Kenma has never been very good at running from people, and just as quickly as he entertains the thought of trying to flee, he is backed into a wall.

“You are magic,” the boy hisses, and Kenma hears the whispers echo around him

His eyes widen. Kenma stares at the boy long and hard, willing for his eyes to see farther.

“You are _terrific_ ,” the boy murmurs, and Kenma recognizes the cascade of laughter and whisper that seems to follow him and surround him wherever he goes.

“Demons, be gone,” he whispers, and hatred boils in his heart. “I am not afraid of you,” he says, and bids them goodbye, placing his palm on the boy’s chest with a quick lunge. The tattoo that curls up his arm reveals itself and glows, sending the boy flying back. He hits the ground with a rattle, having already turned into stone before the impact.

Instinctively, Kenma knows that this frozen state will last for a few hours, at most.

He clicks his tongue, and curls his hands into fists. He hopes that the magic gift he’s been given will work as well on the second time as it did on the first time.

Kenma walks towards Shimizu’s house, and the crowd parts before him, watching him in awe. Anger is clouding his brain, and he is stressed and annoyed and the only thing keeping him grounded is his tightly clenched fists. Even so, he cannot pinpoint his heartbeat on simply the adrenaline and the rage. Some of it, Kenma briefly thinks, must be from the familiarity of reconnection.

Because Kenma cannot use magic, but this magic responds to his emotions in a way that always seems to manifest in the nicest type of attack possible. But not just because he can now use magic to a limited extent, either. If he is really, truly being honest with himself, it is because the spark in his veins in warm, and Kenma has wanted nothing more than to see the dream demon again.

Now that he can feel him…

_It’s only a matter of time_ , Kenma thinks, _before I can see him again._

The situation as it is may be awful, but as long as Kenma keeps dreaming, the dream demon can keep visiting. He supposes that’s not so bad.

All he needs is the patience to wait.

He does not have the patience for the people who approach him for favors, or ask him for demonstrations. The little kids just seem to avoid him entirely, otherwise greeting him with a polite wave. But most come to see if they can cheat him out of gold, even though their previous attitudes had cheated Kenma out of his entire life.

He complains about as much to Shimizu, who keeps a steady eye on Yachi’s potion brewing.

Kenma yawns, cranky and tired from the amount of people he’s had to talk to. “Use sage on that one,” he advises.

Shimizu purses her lips. “Yes, you should try that.”

She turns towards him. “Seems like they’ll just be afraid of you again,” she says. “Since you seem to have some sort of power.”

“Which I don’t care to elaborate on,” Kenma reminds her.

“Yes,” she agrees. “I won’t pry. But the more you do magical things, the more miraculous you will become.”

“And the more I don’t, the more people will bother me,” Kenma argues.

At that, she smiles, a sad look in her eyes. “Isn’t that the paradox?”

He is stopped by someone again. This time, it is no faked collision. Someone grabs at his wrist and does not budge. Kenma freezes. Fear creeps up his spine.

He stares into the eyes of a tall, tall man.

“What do you want?” he asks.

The man does not respond. He stares Kenma down, scrutinizing him from head to toe.

Kenma stills with bated breath. The man grips his shoulder with a vicelike sort of hold. He has this sudden, irrational fear that he is going to die, and just like that a spark alights in his skin.

His left arm glows a brilliant gold, and as he plants his hand to the man’s chest, he blows him a way with a sharp flash of electricity.

Almost immediately, people rush to him. Someone tackles him from behind and has him in a chokehold before they are thrown off in a rush of white-hot lightning.

Kenma drops to the ground, breathing heavy.

He glares up at the surrounding folk. “Leave me alone,” he hisses.

It is a knight that steps forward. Kenma feels the distaste curling up his tongue. _It’s no longer just the village_ , he thinks, dread creeping into his skin.

The knight intones, “The king requests your presence by dusk. Failure to comply will result in… consequences.”

Kenma’s blood runs cold.

_Oh_ , he thinks as the golden tattoo fades from his skin, _I really am getting kidnapped._

 

* * *

 

He’s thrown into a sprawling room with an unceremonious timing, and the doors are slammed shut, locked before Kenma can even get up off the floor.

He winces as he rights himself up. That’s going to bruise, he thinks.

There’s a paper on the floor in front of him. In the dark, he squints, trying to make the letters out. The walls around him glow an aquamarine color, and then bright, harsh balls of light snap to existence above him.

He tests the locks on the doors, first. They seem to be held down by much more than just brute force.

On the paper, a few simple commands are written.

_The village has presented you as a gift. Perform your task. If the hay is gold by the time the guards come to check next morning, you will be safe. If not, you and your home will face repercussions_.

Kenma shivers. It is cold and dark in this room, even as the lights flash from above.

He grips the hay between his fingers. Like expected, it does nothing but hang limp between his fingers.

He grits his teeth. _This is an unreasonable and illogical request_ , he thinks. Then he sighs. _It is exactly what they would have wanted._

He laughs. _I thought they’d lock me up when they thought I was a demon_ , he thinks, with no small amount of bitterness. _I guess even now I’m just something to be controlled._

Kenma wonders if Kageyama really will make good on his promise. It’s still hard to believe that he was right, even as he sits in this enclosure.

He used to think all the problems he had were insignificant. Now he is before the king himself. What does that mean?

_Probably not much_ , he eventually decides. _The king has not spoken or seen me, and I will be dead long before it happens, most likely. In a grander scheme, I am still far too small to make any impact on anything._

Absentmindedly, he pulls the pieces of hay between his fingers, watching as they undergo no change whatsoever. He curses the rumors that brought him here, as well as his own arrogance. As much as he doesn’t regret it, maybe he should have stayed inside, after all.

He touches the glittering ink on his arm. If he really concentrated, maybe it would turn to gold, but he doesn’t—he doesn’t want to use it for something like that. It feels like that would irreversibly taint it and turn it into something ugly. All Kenma has are a few good precious things. He refuses to lose them.

He sighs. He still can’t bring himself to hate that hair of his. It feels like a gift from the world itself, like a magical side effect to the dream demon’s reappearance. He wants to know where it came from, but he simultaneously doesn’t care. Kenma is unsure how to explain that what caused it is probably nothing other than a wish.

It is these thoughts that warm him, even as the air gets progressively colder. _This hair_ , he thinks, _is a sign that someone is looking after me. That someone who is not obligated to bothers to listen to me._

The remembrance of it brings a strange, fluttery feeling to his chest, and Kenma smiles, albeit faintly. Some kinds of magic _are_ real.

A sudden chill sweeps through the room as his vision goes white. Kenma feels ice as it bites into his arm, and grabs at the tattoo with urgency unmatched by anything he’s ever felt. His heart is beating out of his chest when he opens his eyes and sees nothing but pale, unmarked skin. Somehow, it’s been sealed off.

He clasps his hands together in some sort of prayer. Everything in his body feels weak.

His eyes droop. The stress of the situation feels like it’s finally taking its toll on him.

He tries not to think about tomorrow.

He fails.

_I don’t want to die tomorrow_ , he thinks, _but if I die, at least I will be a little happier_. Kenma wants to feel peaceful and content as he thinks this. He does not.

Instead, all he feels is the now ever-too-familiar prickling of anger. _I don’t want to die, he thinks. Not when I’m just getting started._

_I really, really don’t—_

_Not yet_ , he thinks, fierce as he remembers just how much he has been through. He is cold and frozen all over, but the sting burns and burns and burns, caught in his mind like a cycle.

_Not yet. I haven’t even met him yet._

He feels more awake than ever

His eyes fall shut.

He dreams, first, in darkness. The lights above flicker, and then snap shut.

The room is bathed in a cool midnight blue.

Around his body, candles light, casting a warm glow across the room. Kenma wonders if this is what stars look like, up close. His hair shimmers in the faint light. The candles glow a little brighter, and they spread out across the room.

Kenma grabs the fire and cups it in his palms. It is warm in his hands.

A minute later, someone taps him on the shoulder.

Kenma jerks upwards, and once he meets the stranger’s eyes, he screams. 

“Oh. Uh. Okay, calm down, first?”

Kenma breathes in, breathes out. And then he looks up at the stranger again, and—

Oh. _Oh._

He can feel it from within him; his body melts with the realization, warm and happy and nervous, tension sweeping out from his shoulders, everything around him colored with a warm, dusky gold. It’s magic, better than anything before, and Kenma has wanted nothing more than this for years. He has been so, so afraid, and now all he feels is awe, and a tingling feeling in his chest.

He smiles. His hands fall out from their praying position, and he steadies himself on the ground, unable to look away.

“Dream demon,” he murmurs, because in front of him are a pair of bright yellow eyes and a sparkling smile. Kenma can see his face in all of its clarity, and nothing makes him happier.

“So that’s what you’ve been calling me?” the dream demon says, and his eyes sparkle with mirth. “Nothing cool at all?”

“Well,” Kenma says, “you’ve been avoiding me.”

At that, the dream demon looks away. “I thought you didn’t want me around,” he grumbles.

“Oh,” Kenma says. Suddenly he wants to look away, too. “I’m…”

He winces. Kageyama sure will yell at him once this is all over. Probably about the castle security and how hard it is to break in to. And then again for being an idiot. Having Kageyama call him an idiot 3 times in a month is a blow far too big to his ego.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally. “For everything.”

The dream demon frowns. “Why are you sorry?”

“I don’t know,” Kenma says, frustrated. “I just—I think I did something _terrible_ to you.”

“Yeah,” the dream demon says, “and so did I. So we can—we can just wipe the slate clean, then.”

Kenma looks up at him.

“Besides,” the dream demon adds, “I like you as you are. It would be nice to get to… know you, maybe.” His voice trails off to barely a whisper.

Kenma smiles. “That would be alright,” he says. “What’s your name?”

“Ah,” the dream demon says with a little frown. “It’s classified. You can call me Kuro.”

He stifles a laugh. “Is that your idea of something cool?”

“Oh, whatever,” Kuro says, grinning. “I’m—um, uh, I’m a year older than you anyways—”

“You’re a year older?” Kenma asks.

Kuro grins. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re talking to an elder, here.” He smiles before immediately hiding his face in his hands.

“You’re nervous,” Kenma realizes, with no small measure of glee.

“Listen,” Kuro squawks, “I haven’t seen you in a while, okay? I didn’t know the gold hair was going to look so nice on you.”

“Yeah,” he says, and then he smiles. “It’s a new development, but I like it.”

Kuro stares at him. “You know that…”

“I know what?”

“You know that I’m the one who gave you that hair, right?”

Kenma furrows his brows. “Really?”

“Yes!” Kuro exclaims. “Could you not tell from the ink?”

Kenma nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I thought they were separate things.” Kuro groans. “That’s dumb,” he says. “It was a birthday gift for you.”

Kenma ducks his head, suddenly embarrassed. _Oh_ , he thinks, _Kageyama’s definitely going to call me an idiot._ He can’t even feel mad about it.

“That’s good of you,” he says. "Very nice."

“You know me,” Kuro says. “I’m the nicest guy ever.”

Kenma smiles apologetically. “I don’t… really know you, though.”

Kuro smiles back at him. “Well, you will.” After a moment, he slaps his thigh. “Almost forgot!” he shouts, floating down to the ground. He lands unsteady on his feet, frowns at the floor, and then drops down into the haystack with a sigh.

“I can’t believe you apologized first,” he grumbles. “I was going to apologize for landing you in this situation, and then I was going to fix it up for you.”

Kenma tilts his head. “How?”

“Well,” Kuro says, with a flourish, “this.” He pulls a piece of hay through his fingers, and as it passes through, it gleams under the candlelight with a new shine.

“What.”

“Yeah,” Kuro says, sheepish. “Of course, I won’t keep it permanent, but I can deal with the king in time. But you’ll be fine.”

“If you’re going to apologize,” Kenma says, still processing the shock of seeing something turn to gold right in front of his eyes, “you might as well apologize for ignoring me.”

“What?”

“You disappeared after my birthday,” Kenma points out. “That was rude.”

“I thought you didn’t want to see me,” Kuro mumbles.

“Well, I did,” Kenma says. “I still do.”

“So… after this, I can…”

Kenma smiles. “If you want, you can return.”

“I’d like that,” Kuro says. He frowns looking up at the haystack. “This is a whole lot of work,” he says.

“You don’t have to—”

“No, I definitely have to,” Kuro cuts in. “Think of it as repayment.”

“I thought we were wiping the slate clean?” Kenma asks, smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“After this,” Kuro says, gesturing at the room around him, “sure. But let me do this one thing for you.”

Kenma nods. “Any way that I can help?”

Kuro pauses, deep in thought. After a minute, he smiles. “Well,” he says, slowly, “there is one thing I can think of…”

“If it’s creepy, I’m not doing it,” Kenma says immediately.

“It’s not creepy!”

Kenma raises an eyebrow. “You sound suspicious.”

“I’m not suspicious!” Kuroo yells, in the way that a suspicious person does when they are very obviously trying to cover something up.

Kenma laughs. He wonders why it feels so natural, but doesn’t dwell on it. “I guess you just have a dishonest air about you,” he says.

Kuroo sniffs. “ _Rude_.”

“Maybe so,” Kenma says. “But say what you were going to say.”

Kuro glances away from him. “Well,” he mumbles, deliberately avoiding his eyes, “you could make a wish.”

The weight of those words hang in the air between them. It is Kenma who speaks first.

“That’s it?”

Kuro turns back towards him, growing flustered. “Wishes are important! They give me… powers. Motivation.”

“No, just—” Kenma stops. “I was surprised,” he rephrases. “I didn’t think wishes were that important.”

“They’re important when they’re from you,” Kuro says. “I don’t know why. After that first day, when—” He cuts himself off with a look of mortification.

Kenma doesn’t comment on it. “So I just make a wish?” he asks. “Do I have to say it out loud? Or do I just have to think about it?”

“Either works,” Kuro says, “but you have to mean it. It has to not be a joke or anything.”

“Haven’t you heard?” Kenma mumbles. “I’ve sworn off jokes.”

Kuro laughs. “You liar,” he says immediately, and Kenma feels at ease.

_I trust him_ , he thinks, warm and content somewhere deep within, and then thinks about everything he’s ever wanted. He decides to be selfish.

“I wish that you would help me,” he whispers. “And then I wish that you would stay with me, even if you don’t have to.”

Kuro stares at him in bewilderment. His hands are shaking. 

Taking care to walk quietly, Kenma approaches him. “Did I do something wrong?” he asks, kneeling in front of where Kuro lies.

“I—no,” Kuro says, snapping out of his sudden trance. He swallows. “It’s good. You’re good.” He stares up at the ceiling. “I was just thinking,” he continues, “that it was really nice to see you again. You—I don’t think you’ve changed much.”

Kenma doesn’t know why his voice suddenly feels hoarse. “You really think that?” he asks.

Kuro smiles. “Yeah. You just—you’re honest with me. I like it. And I–“” and here he steals a glance at Kenma’s face– “I like that you talk to me.”

“You have low standards,” Kenma says, staring.

_His eyes are bright_ , he thinks, suddenly. _Not bad at all._

“Maybe so,” Kuro says. “You still want to talk with me anyway.”

Kenma swallows. “I guess I do,” he concedes.

Kuro grins. “You’re fun,” he says. “I didn’t think this would be as fun as it is.”

“We have a whole night and a haystack in front of us,” Kenma remarks. “Things will get so much worse. Savor the optimism while you have it.”

“I don’t know,” Kuro says, soft smile settling on his face as he begins to pull pieces of hay through his fingers. “I think I’m happy enough to be here.”

Kenma doesn’t know how to face the kind of joy spilling out from his voice.

So he doesn’t.

“Good for you,” he says, and then winces, because he sounds bitter. “I mean, that’s… nice,” he amends.

Kuro laughs. “It’s good, it's nice,” he agrees. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Privately, Kenma thinks, _take that, Kageyama!_ And out loud, he says, “It’s nice to finally meet you, too.”

Kuro weaves throughout the rest of the night. He talks while doing it, too. And Kenma should honestly tune him out and go back to sleep, either in this dreamspace or the real, actual world, but he can’t bring himself to.

For some reason, he likes hearing Kuro talk.

“You know, while you were gone,” Kuro is now saying, “I met someone kind of like me.”

“Like you?” Kenma asks, a little too tired to say long-winded sentences or make any sort of engaging conversation. Strangely enough, Kuro doesn’t even seem to mind.

“Yeah,” Kuro says. “He’s… like me in that he’s a lot more human that some of these demons you see.”

“Is he nice?” Kenma asks.

Kuro brightens up. “He’s very nice! I don’t know if he can meet you, Kenma, but he’s very nice!” He frowns. “He might be too loud for you, though.”

Kenma wrinkles his brows. “Is he really energetic?”

Kuro nods.

“Yeah, maybe not,” Kenma says. “Too much trouble.”

“He’s a good person, though.” Kuroo says. “A little difficult sometimes, but he’s fun to be around. He’s really my only friend.”

Kenma doesn’t know why, but something in the tone of Kuro’s voice tugs at his heart.

“Well,” Kenma says. “I’m your friend.”

Kuro turns towards him. His eyes are sparkling. They incite that same enchanting feeling that Kenma had felt all those years ago. It is this warm and soft feeling that starts in his belly, like the way a hot drink warms you from the inside, and then it begins to burn your heart in a way that makes him feel all too anxious.

He doesn’t hate it, though. He just likes it a little too much.

“Really?” Kuro asks.

“I did say I wanted to get to know you,” Kenma says.

Kuro grins. “I’m happy,” he says plaintively, and continues weaving.

After a few minutes, Kenma asks, “so is it your job to be a wish-granter?” he asks.

Kuro frowns. “I never really thought about it that way,” he says. “Ever since I can remember, I’ve been attracted to magical energy. But it doesn’t feed me in the way that it feeds other demons.”

“But you grant wishes anyways?”

“I like to call them deals,” Kuro says. “It makes them… less.”

Kenma sighs. “It’s all the same to me,” he says.

“Maybe for what we just did,” Kuro says. “That was a deal and a wish. But mostly I don’t like calling them wishes because it gets a little too personal. I don’t like that.”

“And yet you’re talking to me,” Kenma points out.

“Well,” Kuro says, very quietly, “you’re different.”

Kenma freezes. He wonders if his face is growing warm. He’s too numb with tiredness to notice, at this point. He steals a glance up at the pile of hay Kuroo works his way through. He’s made a sizeable dent in it, and is almost halfway through.

“Am I really different?” he asks, eyes fluttering open and closed.

“You’re amazing,” Kuro says, like it is a fact. Kenma fights to stay awake.

“I’m glad you think I’m amazing,” he says. “But a mortal like me should bow down in front of a wish-granter like you, right?”

“I know you’re joking,” Kuro says. “At least it’s good to see you having fun.”

Kenma smiles. A warm, familiar feeling seeps through him.

_This is real_ , he thinks. _I don’t want to let it go._

His vision blurs in front of him, and he sinks into sleep.

 

* * *

 

Kenma dreams.

Not in clarity, but with feeling, a pounding sort of rhythm that makes his heart almost burst.

He cannot explain any of it. For some reason, no matter what has happened, he has never felt like the color gold has been anything but beautiful. Wealth and riches abound with it, no doubt, but Kenma cares about none of that.

What he cares about is the shine and the glow it has under light, and the way that his hair feels, and the way that the dream demon makes him feel. A different kind of desire, a craving for something to feel at peace, to create happiness.  

The way that Kuro makes him feel.

Kenma holds on to the memory of that name. Color swirls around him. _That lucid dreaming booklet worked, after all_ , he thinks, and then he is swept away into a dizzying array of feelings.

At the end of the road, one thing is certain—

Kenma wants this. He has wanted this for a lifetime.

 

* * *

 

He wakes to find Kuro at his side, smiling down at him.

“All done?” he mumbles.

“Yeah,” Kuro says. “It’s—um, it’s daylight now. You’re going to wake up soon.”

“This—this was a dream?” Kenma asks, almost angry. “All of it?”

“And just as real as anything you will see and hear and feel when you wake up,” Kuro promises, assuaging all of his fears.

Kenma smiles. “That’s good,” he says.

“Find better descriptors of how you feel,” Kuro says with a laugh. “You can’t just say things are nice all the time.”

“I can and I will.”

Kuro laughs. Kenma wants to make him laugh all the time. “I have to go,” he says quietly. He closes his eyes, and wings unfurl from his back.

They are even prettier as the morning dawn hits them, golden-orange sort of light filtering in from sunrise making them shimmer. Kenma stares at them, awed by their beauty, before the full realization of what Kuro had just said hits him.

He reaches up before even he knows it. _I don’t want you to go_ , he thinks, and is surprised by the amount of violence he feels behind it. Emotions are difficult.

Kuro’s cheek is cold. He can feel the blood boiling within him. _Kuro is so, so cold_ , he thinks.

Kuro freezes. He looks at him. “…Kenma?”

The feeling drops out of him and he draws back his hand like he’s been shocked. “I don’t know,” he says. “I just—”

_I only just got to see you again, I don’t—_

_I just wanted you to stay with me_ , he realizes. _I don’t want you to leave._ The thought shocks him into full awareness. He stands up.

“Promise you’ll see me again,” he says, and he knows that his voice is trebling from the stress of saying that out into the open air, but he no longer cares.

Kuro holds out his hand. “I promise,” he says.

Kenma takes his hand, and it’s warm. Kuro traces a circle on his wrist, and vines shift up and down his arm.

Kenma smiles. He feels like he’s on the edge of tears.

“I don’t like talking,” Kenma says. “But I’ll talk with you, when you come back.” It is an admission that is just a little too full of truth.

Kuro smiles and Kenma thinks _this is the person I have been chasing._

In another life, this would be the goal. A final first meeting, in order to right things wrong.

If only he were content with just one meeting. If only he could let this go.

Kenma is past the point of thinking about the rationale when it comes to the dream demon, when it comes to Kuro. He just—wants. And he allows himself to want.

“We will meet again,” Kuro promises, as Kenma’s vision blurs.

He wakes up warm under the sunlight, surrounded by gold, and with a promise in his heart fulfilled.

He hears knocking on the door. Kageyama bursts through with a scowl, Hinata in tow.

“I—something in my dream told me you needed my help,” Kageyama says. “And—and he—”

He pauses, glancing towards Hinata, who is obviously confused.

“It’s fine,” Kenma says. “Am I free to go?”

“The king ordered it,” Hinata pipes up. “He looked pretty shocked.”

“That’s good,” Kenma says, can feel Kuro snickering at him even though he’s no longer around.

“And you’re okay?” Kageyama asks, concerned as always.

He nods. _Keep it secret_ , he tries to convey, and today must be full of miracles, because Kageyama looks like he actually understands.

Kageyama hesitates for a moment, and then awkwardly hugs him. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he says.

“Actually,” Kenma says in response, quiet enough so that Hinata won’t notice, “I think I made a friend.”

He can’t see it, but he knows that Kageyama is smiling.

“You can let go of me now,” Kenma says, after a minute.

Kageyama jumps back, embarrassed. “Right,” he says. “I don’t usually hug people,” he adds.

“Neither do I,” Kenma says.

The sun is high when he returns home. The flowers in the garden have opened up their petals, welcoming the rays that soak into his skin.

The wish in his heart unfurls into full bloom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on a good note, kenma and kuroo finally talk this chapter :))  
> we're movin into phase 2, folks! ch 1 got a little bit of an update bc i wanted to change the mythos just a bit, yknow. nothing that rly is wild.  
> uhhh and kenma's mom is bi i dont make the rules  
> on a real note tho, thanks for sticking with me, everyone!
> 
> please comment id love to hear ur thoughts!


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